


you and i were fireworks that went off too soon

by softirwin



Series: soulmate au [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Exes, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, angsty...but then fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softirwin/pseuds/softirwin
Summary: The tattoos appear one Wednesday night.“What’s yours?” Michael demands, sounding beside himself with excitement. Luke frowns.“What’s my what?”“Your tattoo.”-another soulmate au…but this time its ANGSTY (but dont worry it will end happy because i am me)
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Series: soulmate au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982963
Comments: 224
Kudos: 258





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO...here i am w another chaptered fic but this ones not gonna be too long im saying that now so i have to hold myself to it 
> 
> i think writing fic is my new quarantine/deadline szn coping mechanism so...i think we are gonna be out here with a lot more stuff over the next few weeks as i slowly lose my mind 
> 
> pls talk to me on [tumblr](http://calumcest.tumblr.com) also i do post things there that i dont post here (mainly "drabbles" that are actually like 1.5k long)

The tattoos appear one Wednesday night. 

Almost everyone wakes up for a few minutes at around three-thirty a.m., feeling a strange burning sensation in some square inch of their body. Almost everyone rubs sleepily at the patch of skin - wrist, bicep, shoulder, hip - rolls over, and goes back to sleep. 

Some people, of course, are already awake when it happens, and some people wake up and don’t go back to sleep. Those are the ones who start shooting off confused questions on social media, comparing tattoos, trying to figure out what they mean. A few people start theorising - _mine reminds me of my wife_ , they say, or, _mine reminds me of my first love_ , and by the time the rest of Australia wakes up, the theories have ballooned from _maybe they’re to do with someone you need to reconnect with_ to _this is a clear sign from the government that they’ve placed chips in our minds and know what we’re thinking about_. 

Australia is the first major country to get them. As Tuesday rolls into Wednesday across the globe, more and more people’s thighs, forearms and ankles start to burn, until, by the time it gets to LA, people are buzzing with anticipation, almost the entire country awake at three-thirty in the morning, waiting for their tattoos. 

Luke doesn’t notice his immediately. He sleeps like the fucking dead, so he hadn’t even woken up in the middle of the night like most people, and he wakes up late for work so doesn’t have time to check his phone for the fifty billion messages he’s received overnight until he’s made it onto the train, panting as he flops into an empty seat opposite an elderly lady. She gives him a warm smile, which Luke thinks is a little strange, but he returns it slightly tentatively, pulling his phone out to avoid any further eye contact. 

His phone lights up before he even touches it, and Luke frowns as he sees new messages appearing every few seconds. On top of the messages, he’s got seventeen missed calls from Michael, twenty-five from his mum, three from his dad, and even some from Jack and Ben. 

He unlocks his phone and heads for the messages app, barely managing to open the group chat with Michael and Calum before his phone is lighting up with Michael ringing him again. 

“What?” he hisses, as quietly as he can, throwing an apologetic look at the lady opposite him. “I’m on the train.” 

“What’s yours?” Michael demands, sounding beside himself with excitement. Luke frowns. 

“What’s my what?” 

“Your tattoo.” Luke blinks. 

“Are you alright, Mike?” he says. “You know I don’t have any tattoos.” 

“Are you fucking serious?” Michael says, now sounding incredulous over the staticky phone line. “Have you not, like, looked at your phone? Seen the news? Spoken to a single person?” 

“I woke up late,” Luke says, a little defensively, even though he doesn’t really think he needs to defend not looking at his phone for an hour while he showered, dressed, made breakfast, sprinted to the station.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael says, and Luke can just imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Trust you to sleep through something like this.” 

“Through what?”

“Everyone got a tattoo last night,” Michael says. Luke hesitates for a moment, and then rolls his eyes.

“Mike, I’m not _that_ gullible,” he says. “I think even _I’d_ wake up if a tattoo artist broke into my house overnight.” 

“I’m not joking,” Michael says impatiently. 

“Where are they, then?” Luke says, slightly amused. 

“Mine’s on my elbow,” Michael says. “But everyone has them in different places.” 

“Right,” Luke says. “That’s convenient. Is this just a ploy to try and get me to strip naked on public transport and embarrass myself?” 

“Why do you never believe anything I say?” Michael says indignantly. 

“You’ve never given me much reason to,” Luke says. There’s a beat, and then-

“Yeah, that’s fair enough,” Michael says. 

“What’s yours, then?” Luke asks, because he might as well humour Michael. 

“It’s, uh,” Michael says, cagily. There’s a moment’s pause, and when it becomes obvious Luke’s waiting for an answer, he says quietly: “Duke?” 

“Duke?” Luke says, because he cannot have heard that properly. “Like, Calum’s dog Duke?” 

“Yeah,” Michael says, sounding a little nervous. Luke rolls his eyes. Obviously Michael’s just picked the first fucking thing that came to mind.

“Right,” Luke says. “Not really doing yourself any favours on convincing me this isn’t just a massive joke, Mike.” Michael makes a small noise somewhere between outrage and embarrassment. 

“Check the fucking news, then, arsehole,” he says, and then there’s a beep and he’s hung up. Luke removes the phone from his ear, screen back on the group chat where Calum’s still sending messages, and clicks out and onto his news app. 

He’s immediately confronted with approximately thirty-seven articles about tattoos. Blurry pictures of people’s tattoos, clips of news anchors showing their tattoos to the camera, interviews with people who claim they know what the tattoos mean, interviews with medical officials who are telling people to stay calm, the tattoos don’t appear to be dangerous. Luke’s first reaction is to bring down his notification bar and check the date - okay, May the seventh, so this isn’t an April Fool’s. It might be a late April Fool’s, though, he thinks. 

“He’s not lying to you,” someone says suddenly, and Luke’s head jolts up to see the old lady opposite him smiling at him benignly. 

“Uh, sorry,” he says, “what d’you mean?” 

“Your friend,” she says, “Mike? He’s not lying. Everybody got a tattoo last night.” She rolls her sleeve up to expose a frail, wrinkled arm, and right there, in the middle of her forearm, is a tattoo of a policeman’s hat. 

“That was my late husband’s identification number,” she says, pointing to the number underneath the hat. 

“Oh,” Luke says, because he has absolutely no idea what the appropriate response to _everybody got a tattoo last night, by the way, here’s mine of my late husband’s police hat and identification number_ is. The lady smiles at him again, and rolls her sleeve back down. 

“You should look for yours,” she says knowingly, like she understands this whole tattoo situation. Luke opens his mouth, although he’s not really sure what he’s about to say - thank you? Piss off? What sort of a fucking alternate universe am I living in? - but then the train doors open and he looks outside and realises this is his stop. 

“This is my stop,” he says, thankful that this incredibly uncomfortable conversation is over. “Have a nice day?” He’s not really sure why he phrases it as a question, but he doesn’t have time to think about it, grabbing his bag and coat and just about making it off the train without getting decapitated by the closing doors. 

What a weird fucking start to the day, he thinks, as he starts towards the ticket barriers, but upon realising he’s left his season ticket at home all thoughts of a tattoo leave his mind. 

\------- 

The first person Luke sees when he gets into the office is Calum. He’s wearing a scarf indoors, which strikes Luke as a little strange, but he doesn’t have time to ask because as soon as Luke walks into the room, Calum rounds on him. 

“Why the fuck haven’t you been answering your phone?” he demands immediately. 

“Jesus Christ,” Luke groans as he throws himself into his chair. “Not you too.” 

“What?” 

“Mike rang me trying to convince me to get naked on the train because apparently someone tattooed me in my sleep last night,” Luke says, powering up his desktop. Calum gapes at him. 

“Are you telling me you haven’t seen yours yet?” he asks in disbelief. 

“What? Cal, are you fucking serious?” Luke says, annoyed. He might be gullible, but he’s not _that_ gullible. “I’m not falling for this shit.” 

“Have you checked the news?” 

“Yeah,” Luke says, swivelling in his chair to face Calum as he waits for his computer to turn on. “It’s got to be some kind of joke. A late April Fool’s, I dunno.” Calum stares at him as though he’s just said the sky is green, or All Time Low are a bad band, or something. 

“Are you insane?” he asks incredulously. 

“Alright, show me your fucking tattoo, then,” Luke says sarcastically. Calum hesitates. 

“I don’t want to,” he says shiftily, after a moment. 

“Right,” Luke says smugly. “See?” 

“See what?”

“Mike came up with some bullshit too,” Luke says. “Said his was fucking _Duke_.” Calum stares at him for a moment. 

“Wait,” he says, and he sounds a little strangled. “ _Duke_? Like, my dog?” 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Luke says pointedly, in what he hopes is a _I’m not that stupid_ kind of tone. 

“Oh,” Calum says, and now he sounds somewhere between frightened and elated. Luke cocks his head, frowning. 

“What?” he asks. 

“It’s just…” Calum trails off, and shrugs. 

“What?” Calum bites his lip, and then tugs the scarf down. 

There, inked on the side of Calum’s neck, is a Gibson guitar with six numbers on it: 201195. It takes Luke a minute to put two and two together, but after realising it doesn’t say 2011-95 but 20-11-95, it suddenly makes sense. That’s Michael’s guitar, and that’s Michael’s birthday. 

“Oh,” he says, and now he’s just confused. “Why the fuck did you get Michael’s guitar tattooed on your _neck_?” Calum lets go of the scarf and it snaps back up, covering the tattoo again. 

“I didn’t,” he says. “It appeared last night.” 

“Well, where’s mine, then?” Luke asks sceptically, looking down at his hands and turning them over and over, like a tattoo is suddenly going to appear. 

“I don’t know,” Calum says. “Andy’s was on his arse.” Luke stares at him. 

“I’m not getting my arse out in the office,” he says. Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Go to the fucking toilet,” he says. Luke stands up, because it seems like until he plays into this elaborate prank it’s not going to end, and then stops. 

“Wait,” he says. “What if it _is_ on my arse?” 

“Then it’s on your arse,” Calum says, sounding a little nonplussed. It’s Luke’s turn to roll his eyes. 

“I won’t be able to see it,” he says, hoping Calum will get the hint. Calum stares at him for a moment, then shrugs, and stands up. 

“I hope it’s on your dick,” he says, with a grin. 

“Fuck you,” Luke says, as they walk to the toilet opposite their office. Luke pushes open the door to the first cubicle, and then pauses. "Hang on, is it going to look weird if we’re in a cubicle together?”

“Probably,” Calum says, but he follows Luke into the cubicle anyway, closing the door behind him. 

It’s cramped with Calum in there too, and they shuffle around each other for a moment before Calum hops onto the toilet and gets out of Luke’s way, leaving him to take his jacket off and then fiddle with his shirt buttons. 

“This is the world’s worst strip-tease,” Calum comments after a moment, and Luke scowls at him. 

“Dickhead,” he says, and then, having finally removed his shirt, he turns around to hang it on the hook on the back of the door. That’s when Calum gasps. 

“It’s, uh. It’s on your back,” he says, and he sounds a little worried. Luke twists, trying to see. 

“What?” he says, because he’s not that flexible. “Where?”

“On your shoulderblade,” Calum says, pointing, as if it’ll help. Out of the corner of his eye, Luke can see a crease of concern between Calum’s brows. 

“I can’t see,” Luke says grumpily. 

“Hang on, I’ll take a picture,” Calum says, standing up and fishing his phone out of his pocket. Luke stands still for a moment, until he reckons Calum must have taken the picture, then turns around. Calum hesitates for a moment, then thrusts the phone at Luke. 

Luke sees his skin, pale and freckled, broken up by dark black ink. It’s a strangely beautiful tattoo, a bird carrying what looks like some kind of stick in front of a waning moon. It reminds him a bit of two of his ex’s tattoos, actually - he had some kind of bird on his neck, and a bunch of moons on his forearms.

It’s that thought that’s on his mind as he looks over the picture again, and his eyes fall on the stick. 

It’s a drumstick. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

“Fuck,” Luke says, and he suddenly feels sick. No fucking way has he woken up with his first ever tattoo, and it’s something to do with _Ashton_. “Fuck. Calum, tell me this isn’t real. Tell me this is a fucking prank.” Calum looks at him like he wishes he could tell Luke it was a prank, and shakes his head slowly. 

Luke feels his knees give out, falling to the cold tile floor hard. 

“It comes off, right?” he says, an edge of panic in his voice. Calum looks at him again, and then shakes his head again. “Cal, please. I- I can’t have a tattoo to do with _Ashton_.” 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Calum says, eyes sincere and sad. 

“What does it mean?” Luke asks. Calum shrugs helplessly. 

“No one knows,” he says. 

“But you have Michael,” Luke says desperately, “and Michael’s got you.” Calum hesitates, and then shrugs again. 

“I don’t know, Luke,” he says gently. 

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Luke says, like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything. 

“Maybe,” Calum echoes, but he doesn’t sound sure at all. 

\-------

It takes three months before it’s decided what they are. 

A huge number of studies are done in that time. Calum and Michael themselves volunteer for one, because apparently not everybody knows what - or who - theirs refers to. Some people turn out to have no tattoo, and it seems like people are only getting their tattoos on their eighteenth birthdays. It’s the only topic in the news for that entire time - the only topic of conversation, the only topic Luke encounters fucking anywhere.

He’s grateful his tattoo is on his shoulderblade, so it’s mostly hidden, because he sees everybody sneaking furtive glances at people’s necks, hands, forearms, collarbones, anywhere with visible tattoos. He dodges questions about what his tattoo is from everybody but Calum, Michael, and his family, because the words rise like bile in his throat - _it’s Ashton_. 

(“Oh, Luke,” Michael says sadly, when Luke tells him, and pulls him into the tightest hug Luke thinks he’s ever had.)

(“Oh, Luke,” his mum says sadly, when Luke tells her, sigh broken up by the static of the phone line.) 

(“Oh, Luke,” Jack and Ben say simultaneously on their group call, a moment of tense, awkward, sad silence hanging between them for a moment afterwards.) 

After three months, though, there’s a huge press conference. They’ve worked out what they are, the authorities say, and they’re going to do a televised conference announcing it and explaining how they reached that conclusion. 

Of course, the whole world is on tenterhooks. They do it in Europe, because it’s deemed the easiest timezone for everybody to work around, so Luke finds himself wedged between Michael and Calum on Calum’s sofa at eleven p.m., biting his nails almost obsessively. 

Michael and Calum aren’t speaking much, either. Luke’s not really sure it was the best move for them to be together while finding out what their tattoos about each other mean, but frankly, he’s too focused on finding out what his tattoo means to worry about them. 

At two minutes past eleven, researchers begin to file into the panel in front of the audience of journalists, world leaders standing behind them. It looks almost comical, Luke thinks a little hysterically, a row of men and women in lab coats to highlight their authority on the matter, the world’s most powerful people standing solemnly behind them. Some of their tattoos are visible too, but Luke’s too caught up willing time to move faster so he can finally fucking find out what having a tattoo about Ashton on his shoulderblade means. 

At four minutes past eleven, they start speaking. There’s about five minutes of preamble that Luke can’t follow, lots of words like _hypothesis_ and _methodology_ washing over him, and then the researcher sitting in the middle of the panel clears his throat, pushes his glasses up his nose, and takes a deep breath. 

“From these international, rigorously conducted studies of large portions of different populations, we have concluded,” he says, and nobody breathes. This is the moment. Luke’s heart seems to be trying to get his daily quota’s worth of heartbeats into a single second. “We have concluded that these tattoos appear to be soulmate markings.” 

Luke hears nothing that he says after that. 

_Soulmate markings_. The words echo in his mind, bouncing off every cell in his brain. 

It can’t be right, Luke thinks desperately, as he watches the panellists take questions from journalists but doesn’t hear the words they say. Ashton’s not his soulmate. There’s no such thing as soulmates, and if there were, Luke’s wouldn’t be the first man who had ever truly broken his heart, who had left him almost incapable of carrying on, who had brought him so fucking close to the precipice. 

He’d thought Ashton had been it, back then. He’d thought that he’d been so lucky to find the guy he wanted to marry so young in life. And then, three years later, Ashton had turned around one day, ashen-faced, and told him he didn’t love him anymore. 

That had been it. Luke’s world, Luke’s mind, Luke’s heart, had broken. 

So there’s no fucking way, _no_ fucking way, that Ashton can be Luke’s soulmate. Luke’s soulmate wouldn’t have fallen out of love with him. Luke’s soulmate would never have pushed him so close to never seeing another birthday again. Luke’s soulmate wouldn’t leave him. 

Luke’s so caught up in the sickness that’s washed over him, hands trembling, freezing and sweaty, that he doesn’t realise what this means for Michael and Calum until a noise pulls him back to reality harshly. It’s Calum, clearing his throat. 

“Well,” he says, and he sounds weirdly high-pitched, and suddenly Luke thinks, _shit_. Calum and Michael are _soulmates_. 

“Yep,” Michael says, equally high-pitched and slightly choked. 

“Oh,” Luke puts in, because fuck, Calum and Michael are _soulmates_. 

“Oh,” Calum says, like he’s just remembered Luke’s there, and then there’s two sets of arms around Luke, warm and vanilla and mint and pine. 

“Oh, Luke,” Michael says, and he sounds so sad that Luke’s heart breaks all over again. 

Neither of them say anything more, because there’s so much to say that picking any one thing would be doing everything else an injustice.

\-------

Luke does nothing about it for five weeks. 

Michael and Calum don’t say anything about it either, not wanting to push, but Luke’s getting kind of sick of the wary looks they send in his direction, of the whispered conversations that stop as soon as he walks into the room. They’ve fallen into it so easily that it chokes Luke up when he sees them, easy touches and glances that they’ve always had but have somehow taken on a new meaning. 

(“When did you know?” Luke asks Calum one night over the phone, staring up at his ceiling. 

“That I was in love with him?” Calum asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve always known,” Calum says, and Luke’s heart hurts because he’s so happy for them, he is, but he’s so fucking _miserable_.) 

He jumps every time he gets a text for the first few weeks, thinking it might be Ashton, and filled with both relief and a little bit of disappointment when it never is. His mum doesn’t ask, and neither does his dad, and nor do Jack and Ben, and he loves them all for it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but he hates the way it hangs, thick and solid in the air between them all every time he calls. 

Five weeks is when he breaks. 

He’s in the toilet at work, sat fully-clothed on the closed toilet seat, practically hyperventilating as he types, erases, types, erases. 

_Hey. I know we haven’t spoken in years-_

_Hey. I know we haven’t spoken in a while-_

_Hi. It’s Luke._

_Hi. It’s Luke (Hemmings)._

It feels fucking awful still, even after a few years have passed, to see _Ashton Irwin_ staring at him at the top of the screen, not the stupid inside joke contact name he’d had for the entirety of their relationship. It feels fucking awful typing so formally. It feels fucking awful not knowing what to say to someone who used to know Luke better than anyone else. The whole thing feels fucking awful. 

Eventually, when he’s been sat on the toilet for so long his arse is starting to go numb, he just types two words. 

_What’s yours?_

He puts his phone back in his pocket, unlocks the cubicle with shaking fingers, and goes to wash his hands, because otherwise it’ll look like he’s incredibly unhygienic. 

His phone buzzes as he’s drying his hands, and his heart lurches. He hastily wipes his hands on his trousers, fumbling with trembling fingers with his phone and nearly throwing up when he sees _Ashton Irwin_ flashing up on his screen. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _It’s you._

\------- 

Luke sits on the information for two days before telling Michael and Calum. 

They’re at Michael’s, sitting on the sofa eating pizza (or, at least, Michael and Calum are eating pizza - Luke’s half-heartedly prodding at his), and Calum and Michael are having some kind of a heated squabble about whether tuna on pizza is acceptable or not, and Luke just blurts it out. 

“I texted Ashton,” he says suddenly, and both Michael and Calum stop, dead still. 

“You- what?” Michael says, after a few (incredibly strained) seconds have passed. 

“I texted Ashton,” Luke repeats, mumbling this time. He’s gazing intently at his pizza, mostly to avoid looking at Calum or Michael. 

“Did he reply?” Calum asks. 

“Yeah,” Luke says. Both Michael and Calum inhale sharply. 

“What did he say?” Michael asks. Luke swallows. He doesn’t think he can say it out loud. 

“I-” he starts, but cuts himself off, the words too heavy for his tongue to handle. He shakes his head instead, fishing for his phone in his pocket, and chucks it over to Calum, who catches it deftly. Michael leans over as Calum types in Luke’s passcode - his birthday, because he’s too stupid to remember any other date - and there’s a moment of tension, of bated breath, as they wait for the message to load. 

Luke knows when they’ve seen it because both of their faces contort into the same expression, somewhere between worry, confusion, fear, concern and sympathy. 

“Fuck,” Michael says, staring at Luke almost hesitantly, like he’s about to implode. 

“Are you okay?” Calum asks quietly. Luke shrugs. 

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, because he doesn’t. He’s over Ashton, he is, but he’s never going to forgive or forget the way Ashton left him, the way he broke him and swept away, not even glancing at the pieces of Luke he left in his wake. _Ashton_ can’t be his soulmate. 

“That’s okay,” Calum says, calm and reassuring. “It’s okay to not know.” 

“It’s just a tattoo,” Michael says. “Tattoos can’t tell you who to love.” 

It makes Luke feel a little better. 

\-------

He doesn’t text Ashton again. 

In fact, he’s almost succeeded in pushing Ashton into a corner of his mind again, shoving him back into the _Do Not Open_ box that this tattoo business had let him out of, when his phone buzzes in the middle of the night a week later. 

He reaches over groggily, aiming to turn off whatever it is that’s lighting up his screen and sending vibrations resonating through his bedside table, but wakes up with a shot of adrenaline when he sees the name lighting up his screen. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _We should probably talk about this._

Luke sits bolt upright in bed, palms suddenly sweating. The only thing he can think to do is unlock his phone and dial Michael, knowing he’ll be up, even though it’s two a.m. 

“What?” Michael asks, sounding slightly irked. Luke can hear clicking in the background, so it’s probably a safe bet that he’s playing a game. 

“Ashton texted me,” he says, and the clicking stops. 

“What did he say?” 

“Uh,” Luke says, holding the phone away from his ear and squinting as the bright screen blinds him in the darkness of the room. He fumbles for his light switch with one hand while exiting back into the messages app with the other. “‘We should probably talk about this.’” 

“Yeah, we should,” Michael says, “that’s why I’m asking what he texted you.” 

“No, that’s what he said,” Luke says. 

“He said you should talk about it?” 

“Yeah.” There’s a pause.

“That bastard,” Michael says calmly. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, yet,” Luke says. “I called you first.” 

“Tell him ‘nah, you’re good’,” Michael says, and Luke knows he’s only, like, ten percent joking. 

“Michael,” he says, tone admonishing, but his stomach feels a little lighter. Knowing he’s got Michael and Calum on his side - _fiercely_ on his side - makes it feel a lot less scary, a lot easier to handle. 

“Well, what do you want to say?” Michael asks. 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. He’s fantasised about this so many times since they broke up - about Ashton texting him, about Luke having the power to say no, or say yes - but he’s never decided on a resolute response in his daydreams. 

“You don’t have to reply,” Michael says. “You don’t owe him shit.” 

“I know,” Luke says, and it comforts him, somehow. “Maybe I won’t.” 

“I’ll reply for you,” Michael says, and then there’s more clicking. “Just give me a few minutes to look up how to say ‘go fuck yourself’ in at least forty different languages.” Luke laughs at that, the knot in his stomach loosening considerably.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he says, because now that he’s talking about it, now that it’s not just in his own head and his own heart, it feels a lot less frightening. “What a fucking joke. We get _soulmates_ , and mine’s _Ashton_?” 

“That’s what you get for saying my fringe was ugly in Year Seven,” Michael says. 

“It _was_ ugly.”

“Well, now something else terrible is going to happen to you,” Michael says cheerfully. 

“What’s worse than waking up with a giant tattoo about Ashton on my back?” Luke says. 

“Having to speak to him again,” Michael says. Luke doesn’t really think he can argue with that. 

“I’m going to turn my phone off,” he says, stifling a yawn, because now that the adrenaline’s subsided, the exhaustion is kicking in again. 

“You should just block him,” Michael suggests. Luke is sorely tempted for a moment, but then sighs.

“I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he says, because it’s too late, and he’s not thinking straight, and he doesn’t want to do something he’ll regret. “Thanks for listening to me, Mikey.” 

“Always,” Michael says, with a sincerity Luke didn’t know he had in him. “But you’re going to have to pay me for my services in food.” 

“I’ll cook for you,” Luke says. 

“I said _food,_ not chargrilled remnants of what used to be pasta,” Michael says. 

“I can cook pasta,” Luke protests. 

“‘Cook’ is a bit of a strong word to describe what you can do with pasta,” Michael says. 

“Arsehole,” Luke says, but he’s smiling. 

“Love you too,” Michael says, and Luke can hear the grin in his voice. “Go to bed.” 

“Alright, mum,” Luke grumbles. “Night.”

“Night,” Michael says, and then he hangs up, and Luke’s suddenly all too aware of the silence and darkness and sheer loneliness of his room. 

He switches his phone off, rolls over, and lets the warm feeling of knowing Michael’s there for him envelop him, eventually drifting off to sleep.

\-------

“So,” Calum says, when Luke walks into work the next morning, exhausted and late. He’s swivelled around in his chair to face Luke, fingers steepled against his chin like he’s deep in thought. “Did you text him back?” Luke scowls. 

“I wish Michael would let me tell you things myself,” he says, slamming his bag onto his desk with a little more force than strictly necessary. 

“Did you?” Calum asks again. Luke shakes his head, throwing himself down in his chair, taking his phone out of his bag and putting it on the table before chucking his bag under his desk. 

“I don’t know if I want to,” he says. 

“Fair enough,” Calum says, with a shrug. Luke bites his lip. 

“Do you think I should?” Calum shrugs again. 

“I think you should do what feels right,” he says. 

“I don’t _know_ what feels right,” Luke moans, putting his head in his hands. “He’s my fucking _ex_ . He fell out of love with me. How is he my _soulmate_?” 

“Maybe he’s, like, a platonic soulmate?” Calum offers, and then recoils in the heat of the glare Luke sends his way. 

“Ashton’s not really high up on the list of people I’m looking to be friends with,” Luke says. Calum looks like he’s about to say something, but then Luke’s phone buzzes. He looks over, half-expecting it to be Michael, but-

 **_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _Don’t ignore me, Luke. This is important._

Anger suddenly flares hot in Luke’s stomach. 

“Is it him?” Calum asks. Luke nods, and holds the phone up over his desk for Calum to see. “Are you fucking serious?” 

“He texted me at _two a.m._ ,” Luke says. 

“He’s so fucking entitled,” Calum says, sounding almost as irate as Luke feels. Luke’s so angry that he types out a response without even thinking about it. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _Are you fucking serious? You texted me at two in the morning._

“What did you say?” Calum wants to know, and Luke dutifully reads it out to him. Calum nods approvingly. “Call him a bastard next time.” Luke laughs, both bitter and amused, and then his phone buzzes again. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _I know you’re at work._

 **_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _Call me on your lunch break?_

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke mutters, thrusting his phone at Calum. 

“At least he put a question mark this time,” Calum says. “Fucking arsehole.” 

Luke’s fingers are shaking as he types.

 **_Me_ ** _  
_ _Fuck you. You left me like it was nothing, like I meant nothing after I gave all of myself to you for three years. You never checked in on me, never asked about me, never bothered seeing if I was okay. You just told me you fell out of love with me, and then up and left. You don’t get to demand shit from me now._

Luke erases it all. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _I don’t have anything to say to you._

The typing bubble pops up as soon as Luke’s sent the message, and he watches the words form in front of his eyes. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _I do, though._

\------- 

Luke’s not really sure how he finds himself standing outside in the biting early-October wind on his lunch break, finger hovering over the dial button on Ashton’s contact name. 

He’s been standing there for five minutes, almost pressing it but never quite getting there (except one time his finger had slipped and he’d pressed it and then stabbed the ‘end call’ button about fifty times straight in a blind panic). 

On the one hand, he really, really doesn’t want to talk to Ashton. He’s moved on from Ashton, with a lot of expensive therapy, a lot of leaning on his friends more than he should have and a lot of eating his body weight in processed food, and he wants Ashton to stay a part of his past. He’s worked hard to get to where he is today, and he doesn’t need to be flung back to where he had been. 

On the other hand, this is kind of a big deal. They’re _soulmates_. Ashton was right, although Luke doesn’t want to admit it - this is something they should talk about. Plus, it can’t hurt to hear what Ashton has to say, right?

With ten minutes left of his lunch break and approximately the same amount of time before he has to start sacrificing fingers to frostbite, Luke takes a deep breath and presses the dial button. 

It rings twice, and then there’s a click as Ashton picks up. 

“Hello?” Ashton says, and Luke suddenly feels incredibly sick. He hasn’t heard Ashton’s voice in two years, not since he was telling Luke he didn’t love him anymore, and it throws Luke back to that place, making him feel small and vulnerable and pathetic. 

“Hi,” he says, and he’s proud of how steady his voice comes out given the circumstances. “I have ten minutes.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says. “You’re still living in Sydney, then?” 

“What?” Luke says, slightly taken aback by the question. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Cool,” Ashton says. There’s a moment of awkward silence, and Luke contemplates Googling the quickest way to end his own life before Ashton speaks again. 

“How are you?” he asks, and Luke can’t help but laugh at that. 

“Are you fucking serious?” he asks, and he suddenly feels a little better, a little more in control. Ashton’s asking how he is, and he’s the one laughing. He’s the one with the power. Ashton wants to talk to Luke - Luke doesn’t want to talk to Ashton. 

“What?” Ashton sounds a bit defensive. 

“Get to the point,” Luke says, feeling braver and bigger with every passing second. “I didn’t call for a fucking catch up.” 

“Jesus,” Ashton mutters. “What the fuck happened to you?” _You happened_ , Luke thinks bitterly, but he won’t give Ashton that satisfaction. 

“I grew a fucking spine,” he says instead. “Just tell me what you wanted to talk about.” 

“Well,” Ashton says. “I just- I feel like we should talk about the fact that we’re...y’know. Soulmates.” 

“I don’t have anything to say about it,” Luke says. 

“Are you serious, Luke?” Ashton says, sounding slightly pissed off, and Luke’s caught off-guard for a moment, hearing his name in Ashton’s familiar yet strange voice again. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, and he can’t help the bitterness that tinges his tone. “You fucking left, Ashton, and it’s been two years. What the fuck am I supposed to have to say to you?” 

“We’re _soulmates_ ,” Ashton says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Luke. 

“Oh, what, so you wouldn’t have fallen out of love with me if you got a fucking tattoo a few years earlier?” Luke says, fury swirling in his chest. “You needed a bit of ink to tell you who to love?” 

“That’s not what I mean,” Ashton says, even though to Luke it sounds like it’s _exactly_ what he means. 

“Right,” Luke says sarcastically. “What’s the point in this call?” 

“To fucking _talk_ , Luke, not have you bite my head off,” Ashton says. The fury grows hotter in Luke’s chest, seeping into his veins and heating up his muscles. 

“Talk about _what_?” he spits. 

“You’re my fucking soulmate!” Ashton says, voice rising. “Don’t you want to fucking talk about it?” 

“No!” Luke shouts, and two passers-by give him an odd look. He lowers his voice, and tries again. “No. I don’t have anything to say about it.” 

“I think we should meet up,” Ashton says. 

“I think you’re fucking insane,” Luke tells him. “I’m going back to work. Don’t contact me again.” 

“Wait,” Ashton nearly yells, and Luke, out of instinct, hesitates. “Uh. What’s your- what’s it of?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Luke growls, and hangs up. 

He lets out a shaky exhale as he tips his head back against the cold brick wall behind him, anger pounding through his veins, ringing in his ears. 

Fuck Ashton Irwin, he thinks, blinking up at the cloudless sky. Fuck Ashton Irwin, and fuck the soulmate tattoos. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished one (1) assignment and decided to reward myself with writing another 6k of fic........not like i have 2384 other assignments to do. please comment telling me to stop writing fic and start researching

A week passes, and Luke almost succeeds in putting Ashton to the back of his mind. 

He’s preoccupied with other things - the fact that he’s suddenly got three times as much work to do, because Chris has taken a week off to reunite with his soulmate; the fact that his boiler’s broken, and nobody’s around to come and fix it because everyone’s taking a break to try and find their soulmate; the fact that he’s having to stay at Calum’s, because his apartment is doing a great impression of a fridge right now, and that means listening to Michael and Calum’s hushed conversations about him when they think he’s asleep. They’re clearly worried about him, which is kind of sweet, but also makes Luke feel a little pathetic, throwing him back to the days after Ashton left where Michael and Calum would tiptoe around him, frowning at him but saying nothing, as though any words would be the wrong ones. 

Luke goes home from time to time to pick up post and new clothes, and on Sunday, he notices a note has been stuck through his letterbox. It’s stuck to the soggy newspaper that’s been forced through, so the ink’s run and Luke can’t read it anymore. He shrugs and chucks it out with the newspaper, thinking that if it were someone he knew they would have texted him, so it was probably some kind of advertising.

The only topic of conversation in society now is the soulmate tattoos. More and more research is being done, families are being torn apart, brought together, and churches are booked for weddings for the next eighteen months straight. Luke had finally brought himself to ask his parents what their situation was, and they’d smiled, and that was all he’d needed to know. 

Luke had thought it would take him a while to wrap his head around the idea of soulmates, but somehow, it hadn’t. Somehow, seeing the people he knows interact - seeing Michael and Calum interact - it seems like it’s the only logical answer, like there was never anything else they could have been. It sits uncomfortably in Luke’s stomach, because he knows it’s not like that for him and Ashton. Something went wrong with Luke’s tattoo - it wasn’t supposed to be Ashton, he’s sure of that. Or if it was, then maybe it was a sign from the universe that Luke should take a vow of celibacy.

Luke shrugs when he’s asked at work if he knows who his soulmate is. It’s not like he’s lying - he knows who his soulmate  _ was _ , two years ago, but Ashton’s a stranger to him now. The thought makes Luke feel a little better, if only because it means Luke’s a stranger to Ashton too. Ashton no longer knows him, no longer has power over him, no longer has a grip on Luke’s lungs and heart and mind. 

It’s not until Wednesday evening that Ashton forces himself back to the forefront of Luke’s mind yet again. 

He’s sat on Calum’s sofa,  _ destroying _ him at MarioKart, when his phone starts buzzing. At first, he ignores it, because getting this win is definitely more important than whatever bullshit Michael’s texting him (last time he paused a game to read a text from Michael it had just been a picture of an orange captioned ‘juicy’), but the buzzing continues, distracting him and making him slip on a banana Calum had thrown in front of him. 

“Fuck’s sake!” Luke yells, when Calum whoops joyfully as he makes it over the finish line a microsecond before Luke. “Fuck you. That wasn’t my fault.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Calum says, turning to him with a smug grin. “What, someone take control of your hands? You got that rat from Ratatouille up in those curls?”

“Remy,” Luke says, without thinking. 

“Huh?”

“The rat,” Luke says. 

“I can’t believe you know that,” Calum says, sounding very much like he can believe Luke knows that. 

“Fuck you,” Luke says again, scowling. “I bet you fucking told Michael to text me just so you could finally win a game.” 

“Michael’s napping, dude,” Calum says, looking somewhat amused. Luke frowns. Nobody texts him except Calum and Michael, and Calum’s right here. So if Michael’s asleep- 

His stomach drops. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and watching the screen light up with the one name he doesn’t want to see. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _ I’m outside _

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _ There’s no way you can’t hear this doorbell  _

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _ Have you moved?  _

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Luke says, and shoves his phone at Calum. Calum’s eyes widen as he reads, and he huffs out a laugh of disbelief. 

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding as incredulous as Luke feels. “He’s just fucking turned up at your apartment?” Luke nods, suddenly incredibly glad that his boiler’s broken. Ashton just fucking turning up at his place makes his skin crawl, makes him feel incredibly unsafe. 

“How many different ways do I need to tell him to fuck off before he gets the message?” Luke says, and there’s an edge of desperation to his tone that even he can hear. Calum’s expression softens slightly. 

“You can just block him,” he suggests. 

“Well, he’ll just turn up at my fucking apartment again, then, won’t he?” Luke says. 

“You can stay here until it blows over,” Calum offers. Luke loves him. 

“Thanks, Cal,” he says, and he means it with every fibre of his being. “I just- I just want him to go away.” He hopes Calum understands what he means - not just go away from his apartment, but leave Luke’s life again, because it had taken so much of Luke to get over him and rewrite himself after Ashton had broken almost all of him, and every interaction with him is a sickening reminder of how things used to be, who he used to be. He can’t fucking stand it. 

“Want me to talk to him?” Calum says. Luke hesitates, then shakes his head. 

“I don’t want him to think I can’t handle it,” he says.  _ I don’t want him to think he broke me _ remains unspoken, but hangs between them uncomfortably. 

“Okay,” Calum says, because he understands. He always understands. “Want me to help you draft a reply, then?” Luke nods. 

“Can you call Mikey, too?” he says, and it comes out a little unsure, a little small. Calum’s face softens into a smile. 

“‘Course,” he says, reaching for his phone and unplugging it from where it’s been charging to call Michael. 

Michael picks up after two rings, because it’s Calum, and Luke can see the outline of him in the dark, lying in bed. 

“Hey, love,” Calum says softly, and Luke is suddenly jerked into discomfort, like he’s intruding on a private moment. Calum and Michael haven’t said anything to Luke about their newfound soulmate status, and Luke hasn’t asked, all of them dancing around the topic like talking about it is going to irrevocably change their group dynamic somehow. Luke’s never heard Calum call anyone  _ love _ , and the names he’s got for Michael are usually more along the lines of  _ dickhead, arsehole, fucker _ , and it makes Luke realise just how left out he is now, all because of two fucking tattoos. He has to swallow back the jealousy rising in his throat, press down the spike of anger flaring in his stomach. 

“This better be fucking good,” Michael mumbles, muffled by his duvet. 

“Ashton’s outside Luke’s house,” Calum says, and there’s a sudden sound of rustling, and then the light is turned on, Michael squinting and looking somewhere between furious and concerned. 

“That bastard,” he says, which seems to be a bit of a mantra where Ashton’s concerned. “What the fuck? Has Luke called the police?” 

“No,” Luke puts in, although now that Michael mentions it, he thinks he probably should. “He might be gone by now, anyway.” 

“Oh, I forgot you were at Calum’s,” Michael says, even though he’s been complaining about it for, like, four days straight.

“We’re going to draft a response,” Calum tells Michael, who nods. 

“I’ve got one,” he says. “‘Fuck off, you fucking bastard, and also, I’m calling the police on you. Arsehole. Fuck you.’” Calum rolls his eyes, and Luke laughs, letting the warmth of it flood his veins. It helps to know he’s not alone, both in his anger at Ashton and in dealing with the situation. 

“I already told him not to contact me anymore,” he says.

“And he somehow thinks that turning up at your house doesn’t count as contact?” Michael says, in disbelief. 

“Well, either way, he texted you,” Calum points out. 

“So he just doesn’t give a shit,” Michael says. “Right. Got it.” 

“What should I say?” Luke says, with an only-slightly-melodramatic sigh. 

“Tell him to fuck off,” Michael says. 

“Politely,” Calum adds. 

“How do I do that?” Luke says, fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Kindly fuck off? Please fuck off?” 

“Keep it business,” Calum suggests. “Keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional. Talk to him like you’d talk to a client that’s pissing you off.” 

“As per my last communication,” Michael says sarcastically, and Calum and Luke both laugh. 

“I think you’re right,” Luke says. “Keep emotion out of it.” 

“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “Don’t let him think you still care.”

“I don’t.” 

“Yeah, but you know what Ashton’s like,” Michael says. “You could come at him with an axe and he’d interpret it as ‘Luke cares about my existence’.” Luke snorts, feeling a little spiteful and not regretting it at all. 

“How about ‘I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced’?” Calum says. 

“And ‘I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me’?” Michael adds. Luke nods, typing it out. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _ I don’t feel comfortable with you turning up at my house unannounced. I’ve already told you I’m not interested in speaking to you, please stop contacting me.  _

He reads it out again, and both Michael and Calum nod. 

“Add a ‘you bastard’ at the end,” Michael suggests, and Luke rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, a wave of love and appreciation for Michael and Calum suddenly washing over him. 

He would never have made it through Ashton without them, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle Ashton 2.0 without them either. They’re always there, never questioning, never judging, fiercely supportive, and Luke doesn’t know what he did to deserve two such unwaveringly loyal best friends. 

“Thanks, guys,” Luke says, as he presses send, immediately locking his phone and trying to push down the anxiety that bubbles in his stomach as soon as he sees the words turn blue. “For everything.”

“Of course,” Michael says gently. 

“Always, Luke,” Calum says sincerely. 

Luke thinks that just maybe, with Michael and Calum at his side, he can get through this. 

\-------

It turns out Ashton and Luke have wildly differing definitions of  _ please stop contacting me _ . Luke thinks it means ‘don’t speak to me anymore’, and Ashton thinks it means ‘wait a day before trying again’. 

Luke’s on his lunch break when his phone buzzes. Knowing better than to just assume it’s Michael or Calum now, he fishes it out of his pocket with trepidation. It’s Ashton, his name white against the black of the screen with the green  _ swipe to answer _ button staring back at Luke. 

If he doesn’t answer, Ashton will just try again. If he answers and shouts at Ashton to fuck off, Ashton will know that Luke’s not capable of being cordial with him, that Ashton had hurt him so much that it still stings two years later. So, sighing, Luke swipes on the answer button, and lifts the phone to his ear with a resigned, and slightly pissed off, “What?”

“Hi,” Ashton says, and it still makes Luke feel a little sick. There’s something jarring about hearing the same voice that used to call him  _ baby, sweetheart, gorgeous _ , now miles away on the other end of a staticky phone line, strange and unknown. 

“I told you not to contact me anymore,” Luke says, and it comes out a little weary. 

“I know,” Ashton says, and he has the grace to sound guilty. 

“Right. So you’re just choosing to ignore that?” 

“No, I-” Ashton cuts himself off, and there’s a moment of silence before he takes a deep breath. “I really think we should talk.” 

“I’ve told you,” Luke says, for what must be the thirtieth time, “I don’t want to talk. I have nothing to say to you.” 

“I do, though,” Ashton says. 

“I don’t want to hear it.” 

“Then why did you pick up?” 

“Because you’d just fucking turn up at my house again, or something,” Luke says. “Which, by the way, is really fucking creepy. Like, it made me feel really unsafe. Michael wanted me to call the police.” 

“I know,” Ashton says, and he actually sounds sincere. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Luke does a double take.  _ Ashton _ , apologising? 

“Right,” Luke says, a little nonplussed, because he was expecting a justification, an excuse, not an apology. That’s not really Ashton’s style. “Well. Don’t do it again. I won’t hesitate to get a restraining order.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says, and then, without missing a beat: “Can I take you out for dinner?” Luke’s mouth falls open. 

“Are you fucking insane?” Luke says, too incredulous to be angry. “How many different ways do I have to say ‘I want nothing to do with you’ until you get the message?” 

“We really should talk about what this means,” Ashton presses. “Like. We’re soulmates, now.” The words twist deep in Luke’s gut, and he swallows back the queasy feeling rising in his throat. 

“What if we always were?” he bites out, and he can’t help the bitterness that drips out with the words. They’re met with an uncomfortable silence, and Luke feels a stab of spiteful glee. 

“I want to talk about it,” Ashton says finally, which doesn’t answer Luke’s question. “Please. Just one dinner. And then I promise I’ll leave you alone.” 

Luke tips his head back against the wall, letting his eyes flutter shut. 

On the one hand, he wants Ashton to fuck off and leave him alone, indefinitely. He wants to go back to forgetting Ashton, to living a life without him and to uncomfortable first dates and fumbling hookups. He wants to pretend his tattoo doesn’t exist, to be able to  _ choose _ who he loves rather than be  _ assigned _ someone to love, someone he already tried to love and worked hard to stop loving. 

On the other hand, he knows that Ashton won’t leave him alone until he gives him what he wants. Sure, he might relent for a few months, but Luke will always have that knot of anxiety in his stomach every time he gets a text, every time the doorbell rings, and one dinner might be worth giving himself peace of mind. 

“I’ll think about it,” Luke says eventually. “But just for the record, the fact I have to do what you want before you respect my wishes is doing you absolutely no favours.” 

“I know,” Ashton says heavily, like he’s fucking sad about it, or something. Luke doesn’t think Ashton has it in him to consider Luke’s feelings. “Thank you.” 

“I didn’t say yes.” 

“I know,” Ashton says again. Luke grits his teeth and bites back the  _ fuck you _ that’s on the tip of his tongue, chanting Calum’s words to himself: keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional.  _ I’ll think about it _ isn’t a yes, whatever Ashton wants to tell himself. 

“Fine,” Luke says, after he’s taken a moment to collect himself, cool, calm, professional. “I’ll get back to you when I’ve had time to think. Don’t contact me in the meantime.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says. 

“Good,” Luke says, and hangs up before Ashton has a chance to respond. 

Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks, exhaling heavily and staring at the grey clouds gathering above him and throwing a silent curse out at the universe, just in case it can suddenly read thoughts, for saddling him with this fucking situation. Ashton Irwin might very well be the death of him, for a second time. 

\------- 

Luke completely forgets that he’d told Ashton he’d consider going to dinner with him until Calum tentatively brings him up the following Tuesday. 

“Did Ashton ever say anything to your message?” he asks, scratching behind Duke’s ears, and Luke blinks at him. 

“Did I not tell you?” he says, surprised. He’s not sure how the entire conversation with Ashton slipped his mind for almost an entire week, but he supposes that’s what happens when he doesn’t care about someone. 

“No?” Calum says, equally surprised, as though he hadn’t expected Luke to have heard anything. Luke fucking wishes. 

“He rang me the next day,” Luke says, and Calum frowns, hand stilling on Duke’s back. Duke turns and gives Calum a reproachful look, and Calum starts petting him again absent-mindedly. “Asked me to meet him for dinner.” Calum gapes at him. 

“Are you serious?” he says, in disbelief. 

“I know,” Luke agrees. 

“Jesus,” Calum says, sounding almost in awe of Ashton’s shamelessness. “Was he this delusional when you were together?” Luke laughs, and shrugs. “What’d he say when you said no?” Luke hesitates, biting his lip. 

“I told him I’d think about it,” Luke says after a moment, and Calum’s eyes widen. 

“Luke,” he says, and it’s careful, worried, and Luke hates it. 

“Look, I know,” he says, before Calum can say something like  _ Ashton nearly killed you last time, are you sure this is a good idea?  _ “I know, Cal, okay? I just- I need him to leave me alone.” Calum frowns again. 

“What, and he’s trying to force your hand by making him leaving you alone conditional on you going out to dinner with him?” he says. Luke nods. “What a cunt.” 

“I know,” Luke says. “I think he’d leave me alone if I said no, but I think I’d be jumping every time I got a text. I’d rather just have one dinner with him and know that’s it.” Calum’s frown doesn’t leave his face, but he nods slowly. 

“Okay,” he says. “If it’s for your own peace of mind.” 

“It is,” Luke says, exhaling heavily and slumping back on Calum’s sofa. 

“So you’re going?” 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. “I haven’t thought about it.” 

“You don’t have to,” Calum says, and it’s gentle, supportive. “We can go to the police, say he’s harassing you. We can get a restraining order.” 

“I don’t want to go through that,” Luke says, carding a hand through his hair, a little stressed at the idea. It sounds a little extreme, and a lot expensive.

“Okay,” Calum says easily. “Whatever you want to do, Luke. You know I’ll support whatever decision you make.” Luke smiles, small and genuine.

“Thanks, Cal,” he says. 

“I can’t promise Michael will, though,” Calum adds, and Luke snorts. 

“No, probably not,” he says. 

\-------

“You said  _ what _ ?” Michael sounds absolutely outraged at the very idea. 

“I said I’d think about it,” Luke repeats. Michael folds his arms. 

“And you’ve thought about it, and you’re going to say no, right?” Luke hesitates, and that’s enough for Michael to make a noise of exasperation and roll his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Luke. You’re not going for dinner with fucking  _ Ashton _ .” 

“Who are you, my fucking mum?” Luke says, a little irritably. Michael’s expression softens a little at the barbs hidden in Luke’s words. 

“I just don’t want-” he starts, but Luke cuts him off with a shake of his head. 

“I know, Mike,” he says, because he does, he knows, and he doesn’t need to hear it. “I’m twenty-fucking-six, mate. I can make my own decisions.” Michael looks torn, like he half-wants to yell at Luke (which, frankly, he probably does), but then he sighs. 

“Fine,” he says, sounding very much like it’s not fine. “Are you going to go?” Luke shrugs. 

“I haven’t thought about it yet,” he says. Michael gives him a hard look, and looks like he wants to say something else, but then Calum comes back from the kitchen, Duke in his wake, and sets himself down between the two of them. 

“Play nice, you two,” he says warningly, but he’s only looking at Michael. Luke feels a touch smug about that. 

“Fuck you,” Michael says, reaching for one of the bags of popcorn Calum’s brought through from the kitchen. Duke gets on his hind legs and paws at the sofa, gazing at Michael beseechingly, and Michael almost absent-mindedly reaches down to pick him up and put him in his lap. Duke settles down comfortably, resting his head on Michael’s thigh and blinking at Calum and Luke calmly. Something about the familiarity of the interaction makes Luke’s heart ache a little bit.

“Whose turn is it to pick a movie tonight?” Calum asks, reaching for the other two bags of popcorn and tossing one at Luke. 

“Mine,” Michael says. 

“No it’s not,” Luke says. “It’s mine.”

“Yeah, but your taste in movies is so shit that I’m vetoing your turn,” Michael says. Luke squawks indignantly. 

“What?” he says, incensed. “My taste is fucking  _ fine _ , thank you very much.” 

“He kind of has a point,” Calum says, nodding solemnly at Luke. Luke scowls. 

“Fuck you,” he says, ripping open his popcorn. “Just because you’re fucking soulmates now doesn’t mean you get to gang up on me.” As soon as he’s said it, the atmosphere changes; Calum and Michael exchange a glance, before looking back at Luke. 

“We should probably talk about that,” Michael says carefully, and Luke groans, pinching the bridge of his nose with salty, buttery fingers. Gross. 

“Can we not?” he says, wiping his nose with his sleeve to avoid looking at either of them. “Please, just for  _ one _ fucking night, let me forget the whole soulmate thing exists.” Calum and Michael both hesitate, and then Calum shoots Michael another quick look and nods at Luke. 

“Okay,” he says. “But your taste in movies is still shitty.” 

Luke throws a cushion at him.

\------- 

On Sunday night, at two in the morning, Luke types out a single word. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _ Ok.  _

He presses send, turns airplane mode on, and goes to sleep. 

\-------

Luke completely forgets that he’d turned airplane mode on on Monday morning until he gets on the train and tries to load Twitter. When he turns it off, messages start popping in, so fast that he can’t read them before the next one arrives. Most of them are from the group chat with Michael and Calum, some argument about whether twenty-four hour time is better or worse than twelve-hour, and he’s got one from his dad asking how he’s doing, and - the reason he’d turned airplane mode on in the first place - one from Ashton. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** **  
** _ Thank you. 8pm tonight, Zahli? _

Luke bites his lip, staring out of the window as he thinks for a moment. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _ Ok.  _

\------- 

He doesn’t tell Calum until after lunch. 

“I said yes,” he says, as casually as possible, staring at his nails like they’re the most interesting thing in the world. They’re kind of disgusting, actually. “Hey, do you have a nail file at home?” 

“When are you seeing him?” Calum asks. “And yeah, in the cupboard under the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Have you tried calling about the boiler again?” Luke nods, picking at his thumbnail with his index finger. 

“Yeah, they said they wouldn’t be back for another week,” he says. Calum pulls a face. 

“You’re paying my water bill this month,” he says. “You take as long in one shower as I do in ten.” 

“Why should I pay for your lack of hygiene?” Luke says. 

“Fuck you, I’m hygienic,” Calum says. “And at least  _ I _ know how to pick up towels.” 

“Hey, I’m getting better,” Luke says. “I hang them up now.” Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Stuffing them into the towel warmer is  _ not _ hanging them up,” he says. 

“It’s better than leaving them on the floor, though,” Luke points out, ripping a bit of his thumbnail off. 

“Oh, what, so I should praise you for doing less than the bare minimum because it could be worse?” 

“I mean, a little thanks wouldn’t go amiss,” Luke says, grinning at Calum. Calum scoffs, and rolls his eyes again. 

“You’re the worst housemate I’ve ever had,” he tells Luke. 

“You’ve never had a housemate.” 

“I have now,” Calum says, pointing at him, “and you’re the worst one.” 

“Well, then by definition I’m also the best,” Luke says, biting at the edge of his thumbanil. Calum scowls, and flips him off. 

“When are you seeing Ashton?” Calum asks, which Luke’s kind of torn on, because on the one hand, Calum changing the subject means Luke’s won, but on the other hand, the subject he’s gone for is Ashton. 

“Tonight,” Luke mumbles, around a mouthful of thumb. 

“Tonight?” Calum repeats, and Luke nods. “Okay. Where?” 

“Zahli.” Calum raises his eyebrows. 

“He’ll try to pay,” he says. “Don’t let him.” Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Obviously not,” he says, because he’s not an idiot. 

“What are you going to wear?” Luke stops. He hadn’t even thought about that. 

“I don’t know,” he says, with a shrug. “Probably just my work clothes.” Calum looks him up and down, nodding thoughtfully. 

“Good choice,” he says. “You look good, so you’ll be showing him you’re alright without him, but not so good that he’ll think you’ve put in effort to impress him.” 

“True,” Luke says, because he’s well beyond pretending that he’s not analysing the situation this deeply himself. 

“I wonder what he wants to talk about,” Calum muses, tapping a pen against his chin. 

“Probably, like, how successful his band is, how many guys he’s fucked since me, how happy he’s been,” Luke says, a little spiteful and a little bitter. 

“You’ve been successful,” Calum points out. “You’ve fucked guys since him. You’ve been happy.” 

“I know,” Luke says, but there’s a little twisting in his stomach, because he’s always felt so fucking inferior to Ashton. It feels like he has something to prove since the breakup, like he has to show both Ashton and himself that he’s better now than the iteration of Luke Ashton knew had been. 

“You don’t have to do it,” Calum says, clearly seeing the uncertainty written all over Luke’s face. “You can still back out.” Luke shakes his head. 

“Not now that I’ve said yes,” he says. “He’ll read into it.” 

“So let him,” Calum says, with a shrug. He doesn’t get it - he never cares what other people think, especially not people he doesn’t care about. Luke can’t stop caring what people think about him, especially people he used to care about. 

“I can’t,” Luke says. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be, like, an hour, tops. And then I never have to speak to or see him again.” A weight of relief settles in his stomach at the mere thought, that in six hours everything will be over and his life can return to how it was six months ago. 

“Thank fuck for that,” Calum says, and Luke can’t help but heartily agree. 

\-------

Luke’s at Zahli at eight on the dot, and, because they hadn’t talked about whether they’d wait outside or go in, decides to head inside on his own. His stomach is a bundle of nerves, tension and anxiety settled into every cell of his body, because this will be the first time he’s seen Ashton in two years. The last time he’d seen Ashton, Ashton had been his, and Luke had been a wreck. It’s embarrassing to think back to, that someone he barely even knows now has seen him like that, at his most vulnerable, so Luke orders a glass of red wine to try and take his mind off it. 

He’s forcing himself to be engrossed in the food menu when Ashton sits down. 

“Hi,” Ashton says, voice clear and low, and Luke looks over his food menu at him. 

It feels like déjà-vu, if déjà-vu involved feeling suddenly sick and defenceless and pathetic. Ashton looks almost the same as the last time Luke had seen him, minus the stressed expression on his face, and maybe with a few more crow’s feet. His golden curls have been dyed black, tucked behind his ear besides the one strand he never could control, and Luke hates that he remembers that. 

“Hi,” Luke says, proud of how steady and cool it comes out. 

“You look good,” Ashton comments, after an awkward moment. 

“This isn’t a date,” Luke says. 

“I know.” 

“Good.” Luke turns back to his menu, palms sweating, heart racing, and tries to focus on the words on the page. 

“Have you ordered?” 

“Obviously not,” Luke says, because he’s got the fucking menu in his hand. 

“Oh, right.” Luke rolls his eyes privately, but says nothing, and then the waiter’s coming over and Luke’s just pointing to the first thing he sees on the page and smiling politely. The waiter, however, then takes the menus away from both of them, and Luke’s left with nothing to hide behind, and has to look at Ashton. 

He’s dressed nicely, in a long-sleeved black lace shirt, and he’s got a few more rings on his fingers than the last time Luke had seen him. He’s still just as muscular - maybe even a little more - and his hazel eyes look a little older, blinking at Luke from behind dark lashes. Luke feels so queasy at the sight of him, almost exactly the same but somehow so fucking different, feels the echoes of the worthlessness and emptiness he’d felt in Ashton’s wake squeezing at his lungs, and wills himself not to throw up. 

“So,” Ashton says, after a long, uncomfortable silence. Luke’s not sure whether he wants to yell at Ashton, cry, leave, or die. Dying currently sounds like the most enticing option of the lot.

“Talk,” Luke says curtly. Ashton blinks. 

“Can you at least be cordial with me?” he says. Luke stares at him. What the fuck makes Ashton think he’s deserved that?

“Talk,” he repeats, because he doesn’t trust himself not to fly off the handle if he says anything non-monosyllabic. Ashton sighs, and looks down at his hands. 

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I want to apologise.” 

“Right.” 

“Can I- can I just say this without you interrupting?” 

Luke hesitates, then nods. Biting remarks aren’t part of the ‘keep him at arm’s length, don’t let it get emotional’ routine, anyway. It won’t hurt to let Ashton say his piece.

“Thank you.” Ashton takes another deep breath. “I want to apologise. I know how I left-” he winces “-was pretty cold, pretty brutal. I’m sorry for that. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the last two years, and I regret it. Like. A lot. I missed you. A lot. I wanted to get back in contact with you, but I knew- I knew you wouldn’t want to hear from me. And then the tattoo came, and I- I didn’t look at it, for a few days, because when I looked at what everyone was saying online, I knew it would be you.” He pauses, eyes flicking back to Luke, like he’s gauging his reaction. Luke, though, is sitting still, emotionless, face blank. He’s not giving Ashton any satisfaction. “And then I looked, and it was. And I knew I had to be yours, but you didn’t say anything.” The pause is longer this time, an invitation for Luke to speak.

“Okay,” Luke says, because he doesn’t really have anything else to say. 

“I- it’s not just the tattoo, Luke,” Ashton says, and Luke never wants to hear his name coming from Ashton’s lips again. “It’s you. I regretted it the minute I left, but I couldn’t go back to you, not knowing what I did. How I did it. I- When I heard about the tattoos, I knew it was going to be you. It’s always been you.” 

Luke kind of wants to laugh. Two years ago, these are the exact words he wanted to hear from Ashton.  _ It was a mistake, I’m sorry, I love you, it’s only you _ \- those words bounced around his head in different fantasies for months on end. Now, though, he feels nothing, and that’s the biggest success Luke thinks he’s ever had in his life. He’s sitting across from the person that took him the closest to the edge, and he feels nothing. It makes him feel powerful, feel in control, and he relaxes a little. Ashton’s apologising to  _ him _ , opening up to  _ him _ . Luke’s not giving anything away.

“You fell out of love with me,” Luke says, and it’s not accusing, it’s not emotional. It’s calm, rational, matter-of-fact. 

“I thought I did,” Ashton says, and he opens his mouth to speak but then the waiter comes, handing them their dishes with a smile. Luke throws a smile at him, but Ashton barely glances at him. There’s an awkward silence as the waiter asks if they want any pepper, and Luke says yes please, and they have to wait for the waiter to bring it over and then for Luke to say stop. Luke lets it go on a little longer than maybe strictly necessary, childishly enjoying the way Ashton’s squirming in his seat, and then thanks the waiter with a brilliant smile, just to drive home the point of how friendly he can be with people that aren’t Ashton. 

“I thought I did,” Ashton repeats, when the waiter’s finally gone and Luke’s tucking into his potatoes. “That’s why I left. I thought I didn’t love you anymore, and then I actually had to live without you, and I realised it was just because we were settling into a familiar love. I just couldn’t handle the commitment, and it made me block you out.” Luke raises an eyebrow, but keeps eating, and Ashton sighs. 

“Look,” he says. “I- I know I fucked up. Badly. But I didn’t need a tattoo to tell me that. I already knew what the tattoo confirmed. I’d-” he swallows. “I’d really like the opportunity to have a second chance.” Luke sets his fork down at that, and sits back in his chair. 

“Do you know what you did to me?” he says, calm and even. Ashton just stares at him, which Luke takes as a no, so he goes on. “You left me feeling like I was worthless. I spent months in therapy, and even longer crying on Calum and Michael’s shoulders every night. I couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t  _ breathe _ because everything was you.” He pauses, weighing up his next words. “You left, and I was left behind. I had to work hard to fall out of love with you. That was  _ your _ choice, not mine. I would probably never have stopped loving you if you’d let me. But you moved on, and so I had to as well. And the consequence of  _ your _ choice,  _ your  _ actions, is that I don’t love you anymore. I don’t feel anything for you anymore. I’m only here to get you to leave me alone.” Ashton looks a little sick when Luke finishes. 

“And the fact we’re soulmates doesn’t mean anything to you?” he says, his voice cracking slightly on the word ‘soulmates’. Luke shrugs. 

“No,” he says. “I don’t want to be with you. I don’t care who else you fuck. I don’t care who else you love. I don’t care about you anymore, Ashton.” Ashton swallows, and nods. 

“I guess I deserve that,” he says, and Luke can’t help but huff out a laugh. 

“You kind of do,” he says, but it’s not unkind. Ashton sighs, and rakes a hand through his hair. 

“I thought you’d be more open to the idea,” he admits, taking Luke aback a little with his honesty. 

“You don’t know me anymore,” Luke says. “Don’t kid yourself that you do. I’m not the same person you left behind.” 

“Doesn’t it bother you, though? That we’re supposed to be together?”

“I guess sometimes the universe gets it wrong,” Luke says, with a shrug. “We tried, and it didn’t work.” 

“It might work now that I know how to love you properly,” Ashton says. 

“I’m not going to give you a second chance based on a ‘maybe’,” Luke says. Ashton stares at him for a moment, and then nods, tight-lipped and unhappy. For the first time, Luke feels a little sorry for him. He’s not even touched his food. 

“Can I see it?” Ashton asks, after a moment. 

“It’s on my back,” Luke says. “It’s your bird tattoo, carrying a drumstick in its mouth with one of your moons in the background.” Ashton nods again, but it’s absent-minded, almost numb.

“That sounds beautiful,” he says. 

“It is,” Luke says. 

“Mine’s a daisy chain wrapped around a microphone,” Ashton says. 

“That’s my favourite flower,” Luke says, without thinking, and Ashton nods. Of course, Ashton already knew that. Luke remembers the conversation; Ashton laughing at him (“Daisies can’t be your favourite flower, Luke, that’s fucking stupid.”), his defensiveness (“Fuck you, they’re cute.”), chucking a cushion at a giggling Ashton’s head. 

“It’s on my tricep,” Ashton says, even though Luke hadn’t asked. 

“Mine’s on my shoulderblade.” Ashton nods, and they lapse into silence. Luke’s finished his food, and Ashton’s not even glanced at his, which is stopping the waiter from coming back to clear their plates away. 

“We should probably pay,” Luke says, when the silence stretches on for so long that he thinks it might be Tuesday already. 

“Okay,” Ashton says, and he sounds kind of sad. Luke flags down the waiter, who asks Ashton if there was a problem with the food, and an awkward conversation ensues in which Ashton smiles at the waiter and tells him no, he just doesn’t feel well, but his friend had really enjoyed the food, and Luke watches as the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The waiter asks if they want to split the bill or pay as one, and Luke jumps in and says they want to split it before Ashton can make one final grand romantic gesture, or whatever. The waiter nods, coming back (much to Luke’s relief) in record time with the card machine and two bills. Luke and Ashton pay, thank the waiter, and then fumble with their coats as they get up and head out into the temperate early November night. 

“So,” Ashton says, when they get out of the restaurant. “I guess this is it.” Luke nods. 

“This is it,” he says. 

“I had a nice evening,” Ashton says, and Luke can’t help but laugh. 

“No, you didn’t,” he says. Ashton half-smiles. 

“Okay, no I didn’t,” he admits. “But I did enjoy seeing you again.” Luke nods, not really sure how to take that. 

“Good luck with everything,” he says. 

“You too,” Ashton says. Luke smiles at him, and it’s a real smile, partially fuelled by relief, and partially by something he can’t quite put his finger on. 

“Get home safe,” Luke says, because he can’t say ‘see you’, since he’s sincerely hoping not to. 

“You too,” Ashton says again. Luke nods, offers him one last smile, and then turns on his heel and walks away. 

His shoulderblade tingles as he goes, and there’s an odd edge of sadness to his relief, but he doesn’t stop or look back. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok yes i am being prolific right now but this may be the last chapter for a few weeks (possibly...writing fic is my new procrastination method so it might not be but i'm just putting it out there) bc the next 2 weeks are Incredibly hectic for me from a uni work pov please pray for me 
> 
> also i just want to take the time to thank everyone who's commented on this fic i go back and read your comments all the time they make me so happy n mean so much to me so thank u for making my day every single time

The boiler is fixed a week later, and Luke returns home. 

Despite the fact he’s always lived in this apartment alone, it feels oddly quiet without Calum shouting at him from the kitchen every five minutes and a dog pawing at his ankles for food every two hours. Luke, in all his twenty-six-year-old wisdom, decides that the obvious solution to this temporary loneliness, rather than waiting it out, is to get a dog himself. 

“Look,” Calum coos, because Luke (in all his twenty-six-year-old wisdom), has decided to ask the biggest dog-lover on the planet to accompany him to the shelter to pick out one ( _one_ ) dog. “This one’s so cute.”

“You’ve said that about the last seven,” Luke says. The shelter employee accompanying them laughs.

“That’s because they’re all cute,” Calum says, smiling big and soft at the little puppy sniffing at his finger excitedly. “You should get them all.” Luke rolls his eyes. 

“That’s a great idea,” he deadpans, knowing Calum’s barely listening to him anyway. “My four-room apartment is ideal for seven dogs.” 

“Exactly,” Calum says absent-mindedly, moving on to the next dog and grinning widely at it. “Hey, little man. This one’s adorable, Luke.” 

“Do you think any dogs _aren’t_ adorable?” Luke asks, partially exasperated, partially genuinely curious. 

“There’s no such thing as a non-cute dog,” Calum says, and he crouches down to get as close to a corgi’s eye level as a six-two grown man can get. Luke’s got to admit, this one _is_ pretty cute, wagging its little tail and gazing up at them with what almost looks like a smile. Its tail starts wagging harder when Luke crouches down next to Calum, and, unlike the previous seven dogs, it elects to walk over to Luke rather than Calum. 

“I think you’ve found your guy,” Calum says, straightening back up again. “What is he, a corgi mix?” 

“A pomeranian-corgi mix,” the employee confirms. “He’s called Clifford.” Luke looks at Calum in horror, and Calum bursts out laughing.

“I can change his name, right?” Luke says, because he doesn’t know the intricacies of dog ownership. He’s not sure whether he, like, needs to appeal to court to change his dog’s name, or something. 

“Well, technically, yes,” the employee says, “but Clifford’s pretty resistant to change. We tried changing it to Chester and he refused to respond.” Luke looks back at Clifford, who’s still wagging his tail, tongue out, looking decidedly pleased with himself. Luke’s heart kind of melts. 

“Right,” he says. “I mean. I guess I can just live with the embarrassment of having a dog named after Michael, right?” He directs the last bit at Calum, who shrugs, still grinning. 

“Your call, dude,” he says gleefully, because he’s a terrible friend. Luke sighs, casting another glance at Clifford. 

“You’re going to be the death of me, little man,” he says, and Clifford paws at the cage. 

\-------

“He’s called what?” Michael says, half in disbelief, half in delight. 

“Fuck you,” Luke says, as Clifford sniffs at Michael’s ankles curiously. Michael bends down, scratching behind Clifford’s ears. 

“Hey, buddy,” he says. “You’re my son, d’you know that?” Clifford’s eyes close and he pushes into Michael’s touch. 

“Get your own dog,” Luke says, tugging on Clifford’s lead gently. Clifford refuses to budge. 

“I might,” Michael says. “Clifford needs a sibling.” 

“He’s not your fucking son,” Luke says, tugging again, and finally Clifford trots back to heel and settles down, resting his head on Luke’s foot. 

“Don’t swear in front of my kid,” Michael says, smiling fondly at Clifford. 

“I hate you,” Luke says, because he does. 

\-------

Having a dog is a lot like what Luke imagines living with Michael is like, so maybe Clifford is aptly named. 

Clifford follows Luke from room to room, paws at the sofa until Luke lets him on, glares at Luke when he’s playing Xbox until he makes room in his lap for Clifford to sit, and starts making whining noises when he thinks it’s been too long since he last ate (which is, like, every half an hour). 

“I’m trying to work, little man,” Luke says one Saturday morning in late November, when Clifford sets himself down on Luke’s feet and glowers at him for having a laptop in his lap. Clifford makes a noise of disdain. “You can sit next to me, but I need to keep this roof over our heads.” He pats the sofa next to him, and Clifford gives him one final reproachful look before trotting over to the sofa and pawing at it. Luke leans over the laptop to pick him up, because he knows better than to take the laptop off his lap and give Clifford a chance to worm his way in, and Clifford curls up next to Luke, staring across the room at the door to the hallway. 

Luke manages to work for another hour and a half, ignoring Clifford’s dramatic sighs (seriously, who fucking knew dogs could be drama queens?), before he can’t concentrate on anything other than his growling stomach anymore and sets his laptop aside. Clifford, who’s been dozing for at least twenty minutes, immediately jolts upright and pads into Luke’s lap, curling up and resting his head on Luke’s thigh. 

“Not now, little man,” Luke says, picking Clifford up gently and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “I need to make us lunch.” He sets Clifford down on the floor and stands up, stretching as he walks into the kitchen, Clifford hot on his heels. 

Calum had told him to make sure he makes his own food first before feeding Clifford, because apparently the alpha eats first, or something, so Luke flips the kettle on, chucks a few handfuls of pasta into a pot and puts the ready-made bolognese sauce he’d bought into a separate pot to heat up. Clifford knows the routine by now, so he just settles down near his food bowl, closing his eyes. 

Luke’s a pretty quick eater, so Clifford gets his food about twenty minutes later while Luke’s washing up his pots. When Clifford’s finished, lapping at the water in his bowl noisily, Luke heads back into the living room and picks his laptop back up again. Clifford follows a few moments later, and this time doesn’t complain about Luke working when Luke picks him up and sets him down at his side, petting him absent-mindedly as he reads a report. 

By four, Luke’s concentration has gone again, so he closes his laptop and stretches. Clifford stretches next to him and then jumps off the sofa, wagging his tail expectantly. 

“Alright,” Luke says. “Get your lead.” Clifford spins excitedly in a circle for a moment before running off to the hallway, tearing back in the door a moment later with his lead trailing along the floor behind him. Luke bends down, and Clifford sits still as he waits for Luke to clip the lead to his collar. He lets Luke tug on his shoes and then starts pulling on the lead a little impatiently while Luke searches for his keys. 

“You’ll be the one complaining if we get locked out, Cliff,” Luke says, a tad irritably, when Clifford pulls a little harder after two minutes of Luke trying to find his keys. He eventually finds them in his jacket pocket, and sets off, locking the door behind him. 

It’s nice outside, and Luke tilts his face into the sun as they make their way to the park. It’s only a short distance away, and Clifford patiently waits at the kerbs of the two roads they have to cross which makes the journey a lot easier for Luke. Once they’re in the park, Clifford beelines for the dog park, making Luke quicken his pace a little to keep up. He hops excitedly in front of the gate as Luke fumbles with the latch on it, and as soon as there’s a sliver of a gap he forces his way through, causing the lead to get caught on the railings as he twists his way through. 

“Cliff, you fucking idiot,” Luke says, unhooking the lead where it’s got caught and slipping into the dog park himself, shutting the gate behind him. “Sit, I’ll let you off.” Clifford sits, vibrating with excitement, and the minute the lead is unclipped from his collar he’s tearing off to join the other dogs running around the middle of the park. 

Luke ambles over to one of the wooden benches, away from other people - making small talk with dog owners gets a little painful after a while, he’s found - and settles down, keeping an eye on Clifford and making sure he’s not getting involved in anything too rough with any of the bigger dogs. He’s so caught up in watching Clifford that he doesn’t notice someone sitting down next to him until they clear their throat, making Luke throw them a glance. 

And his stomach drops, because fucking hell. It’s Ashton.

“Hi,” Ashton says, offering Luke a small, almost nervous smile. 

“What are you doing here?” Luke asks stupidly, because in his mind, Ashton’s not supposed to be anywhere Luke is.

“Walking my dog,” Ashton says. “What are you doing here?” 

“Walking mine.” Ashton frowns, looking out at the pack of dogs running around, like he’s trying to pick Luke’s out from the group. Luke looks over too, because Ashton being here means Spot’s here somewhere, and he always liked Spot. 

“You have a dog?” Ashton says, and he sounds kind of uneasy about it. Luke kind of relishes it; it’s solid proof that Ashton doesn’t know Luke anymore, and it doesn’t sit well with him. 

“Obviously.” Ashton says nothing to that for a while, and they sit in incredibly tense, awkward silence. 

“How have you been?” Ashton says eventually, and Luke snorts. 

“We’re not doing small talk, Ashton,” he says. The name rolls off Luke’s tongue a little easier than it had the first time, a month ago, and something about that sets his teeth on edge. 

“Jesus, alright,” Ashton mutters. “I’m just trying to be polite.” 

“Well, don’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, Luke sees Ashton roll his eyes, but he doesn’t say anything else. 

After another five painfully slow minutes have passed, Luke’s had enough. He gets up, fumbling with the lead in his hand, and shouts: “Clifford!” 

“You named your dog after Michael?” Ashton asks from behind him. Luke scowls as Clifford comes bounding over, but his stomach flips uncomfortably. It’s yet another reminder that Ashton knows more about him than he’d like, that he still knows little things like his best friend’s surname. 

“No,” he says, bending down and clipping Clifford’s lead onto his collar. “He was called Clifford when I got him.” 

“Oh,” Ashton says. “Like the big red dog? Kind of a shitty name for a tiny corgi.” Luke’s scowl deepens. 

“He’s a pomeranian-corgi mix,” he says, a little venomously, “and yours is called fucking _Spot_.” He gives in to Clifford’s puppy eyes, petting him briefly before straightening up. 

“She’s got spots,” Ashton says defensively. 

“She’s a _dalmatian_.” 

“Exactly.” Luke rolls his eyes. 

“I’m not taking any fucking criticism from someone who names a dalmatian Spot,” he says. 

“It’s a good fucking name for a dalmatian,” Ashton says, getting up from the bench too. “Spot!” 

Spot comes zooming out of the group of dogs, a blur of black and white, but doesn’t head for Ashton. Instead, she beelines for Luke with her tail wagging harder than he thinks he’s ever seen it go. She jumps up at him before she even reaches him, trying to lick every inch of his body, and Luke can’t help but laugh as he tells her _down, Spot, down_ and tries to pet her. 

“She’s missed you,” Ashton remarks. Luke doesn’t take the bait, just pats Spot on the head one last time before turning to Clifford, who’s trotted up to Spot, intrigued. 

“C’mon, little man,” he says, but Spot’s just noticed Clifford at her feet and is also taking a great interest in him. The two of them sniff each other for a moment, and then their tails start wagging, and Clifford’s face breaks into what Luke always swears is a grin, and Michael always tells him is probably a doggy cry for help. “C’mon, Cliff.” 

“Heel, Spot,” Ashton says, like he’s trying to prove Spot’s better-trained than Clifford, or something. Spot, though, doesn’t budge.

“Heel,” Luke tells Clifford sternly, because fuck Ashton, and Clifford trots to Luke’s feet, albeit a little reluctantly. Luke can’t help but feel a little smug as Ashton gives up, leaning over to clip Spot’s lead to her as she gazes up at Luke, panting happily. Luke gives her one absolutely final pat on the head, because he has kind of missed her too. 

“Alright,” Luke says, a little uncomfortable, because he has no idea how to say goodbye to someone he never wanted to see again. 

“See you,” Ashton says, and it’s written all over his face that he knows what Luke’s thinking. Luke snorts. 

“Hopefully not,” he says, but it’s not mean. It’s just honest. 

Ashton smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, see you not, then,” he says. 

“See you not,” Luke agrees, and sets off out of the park. 

It only occurs to him when he’s waiting to cross the road that he’s just had a semi-civil conversation with Ashton, and it sends a bewildering flash of confusion, anger and embarrassment coursing through his veins. 

Whatever, he thinks, as Clifford trots off when the light turns green. It's not like he's going to see Ashton again, so it doesn't matter. 

\-------

“What are your plans on Thursday?” Calum asks him on Tuesday afternoon. Luke shrugs, trying to adjust the settings on his fan. It’s too fucking hot in here. 

“Dinner, TV, wanking,” Luke says, fiddling with the controls. “Why?” 

“Come to dinner,” Calum says, and there’s an edge of something a little nervous to his tone. Luke looks up at him with a frown. 

“Why?” he asks, suspicious. Calum hesitates for a moment, like he’s not sure whether he should tell Luke, but then he sighs. 

“Mike and I want to talk to you,” he says. Luke looks away again, staring steadfastly at the fan. 

He’s known this talk was going to come for a long time. Every time he makes a comment about their soulmate status and then clams up when they try and broach the topic, he sees them exchange a Look, a Soulmate Look (or maybe just a Michael And Calum Look). They’re careful to avoid talking about it when Luke’s around, to keep the touches and looks to a minimum, but the minimum is still enough for it to be painfully obvious what they are and that Luke’s not a part of it. 

“Fine,” Luke says eventually, reluctant, because it’s been nearly three months since they found out and they still haven’t spoken about it, and even Luke has to admit that at some point, it’s going to start impacting their friendship unless they all lay their cards on the table. Calum makes a noise of relief, like he hadn’t expected Luke to be so easy to convince. 

“Seven?” he says. Luke nods tightly, twisting the bottom of the fan in annoyance at both it and Calum, and it finally starts fucking whirring. 

“I saw Ashton at the weekend,” he says after a moment, because he feels a little guilty and anything is a better topic of conversation than the uncomfortable silence they’ve lapsed into. 

“You _what_?” Calum sounds aghast. 

“By accident,” Luke says hurriedly. “I was walking Cliff, and he was in the dog park.” 

“Right,” Calum says, concern still colouring his tone. “Did you talk to him?”

“He talked to me,” Luke says. 

“What did he say?” Luke shrugs. 

“Tried to make small talk,” he says. “Insulted Cliff’s name.” Calum looks torn, because he usually never misses an opportunity to insult Clifford’s name, but clearly thinks now is not the right moment. 

“How did you leave it?” he settles on eventually. Luke can see the self-restraint it’s taking him to not say _Clifford is a shitty dog name, to be fair_. Maybe this is a good tactic to get Calum to stop making fun of Luke; next time Calum jokes about how long Luke takes to get ready in the mornings, Luke’s going to tell him Ashton said the same thing. 

“He said see you, and I said hopefully not,” Luke says. Calum nods, satisfied. 

“Good,” he says. “Have you seen him there since?” Luke shakes his head, and hesitates, before telling Calum he’s not actually been to the dog park since Saturday. Calum frowns. 

“Why not?” he asks. Luke shrugs, a little uncomfortable, fiddling with the settings on the fan again. His face is heating up, and he’s pretty sure it’s just because it’s too fucking hot in here. 

“Don’t want to bump into him,” he says. Calum gives him a long look, and Luke tries not to lose his composure under his steely gaze. 

“You shouldn’t let him change your routine, Luke,” Calum says seriously. 

“I know,” Luke says, picking at a stray thread in his sleeve. “It’s just- it’s easier.” Calum says nothing for a moment, and then sighs. 

“He’s going to think he has an effect on you,” he says, and it’s a little patronising. 

“He does,” Luke mutters. “He pisses me the fuck off.” 

“You know what I mean.” And Luke does, and that pisses him off too. 

“Whatever,” he says, turning back to his computer and clicking on the email in his inbox that looks easiest to deal with. “My problem, not yours.” It’s mean, it’s uncalled for, and Calum doesn’t deserve it, and Luke feels a pang of guilt as soon as he says it, but he can’t swallow his pride to apologise. 

Calum doesn’t say anything, which Luke kind of thinks is worse than if he’d just taken the bait and risen to the argument Luke’s sort of spoiling for, and they sit in silence for the rest of the afternoon. 

\-------

Thursday comes too soon. 

Luke brings Clifford, partially because he doesn’t want to leave him alone for two hours and partially as a shield or an excuse to leave, but as soon as he lets himself into Calum’s flat with the key he’d been given when Calum moved in Clifford tears off, lead trailing behind him, to find Duke. 

“Hey, son,” he hears Michael say to Clifford, and scowls. 

“Come back, little man,” Luke shouts, kicking his shoes off. Reluctantly, Clifford comes back around the corner, and Luke bends down to give him a quick scratch and unclips his lead. Clifford doesn’t hesitate, running back into the living room to find Duke, who’s probably sleeping and doesn’t want to be disturbed by an over-excited three-year-old dog. Luke hangs the lead up on top of his jacket and trails after Clifford, finding Michael on his own in the living room playing MarioKart. 

“Hi,” he says, setting himself down on the sofa heavily. There’s an uncomfortable atmosphere that he’s not used to having with Michael and Calum, not since Year Nine when they both hated his guts. 

“Hey,” Michael says nonchalantly, not looking away from the screen, but it’s too casual. Luke’s stomach flips, and he swallows. 

“Cal in the kitchen?” Michael nods. Great. Now he’s making awkward small talk with his own best friends. 

Luke watches Michael play for a few minutes, one eye on Clifford to make sure he’s not annoying Duke _too_ much, and then Calum comes out of the kitchen and declares that dinner’s ready and they all shuffle to the table, dogs in tow with hopeful looks on their faces. 

They make idle, awkward chat while serving themselves, Calum and Luke filling Michael in on this stupid fucking client they had to deal with last week, and everybody’s uncomfortable because it’s stringing out the inevitable but none of them want to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room. 

Eventually, though, Michael sighs, and puts his fork down. 

“This is stupid,” he says, and Luke privately agrees. “Can we just talk?” Calum shoots Luke a worried glance, and Jesus, Luke wishes they would stop acting like he’s going to fucking _break_ if they talk about it. 

“Yeah,” Luke says. “Let’s just get this over with.” It’s a little barbed, and he feels bad when Calum’s shoulders slump a little, because he _is_ happy for them, he is, he’s just also selfishly unhappy that the three of them are now _officially_ Michael-and-Calum and Luke rather than just unofficially. 

“Okay,” Michael says. “So. Calum and I are soulmates.” Luke nods, putting a forkful of beans into his mouth so he won’t have to say anything. 

“We want you to know it’s not going to change anything between us,” Calum says, and Luke chokes, half on a mirthless laugh, half on his beans. With a little difficulty, he swallows, takes a sip of water, and then speaks. 

“That’s not true,” he says. “It has to change things between us. It’s already changed things between us.” 

“You know what we mean,” Michael says. Luke doesn’t like the _we_ , the _us and you_ implication. That’s exactly what he’s talking about. “We’ll still be best friends.” 

“We want this to be an honest conversation,” Calum says. “All cards on the table.” 

“ _All_ cards on the table?” Luke says, flicking a glance at Michael, who knows firsthand how spiteful Luke can be. Calum’s never had an argument with Luke like The Great Bedroom Bust-Up of 2019. Michael holds his gaze, and nods. 

“Okay,” Luke says. “You first.” Calum and Michael exchange another glance, some kind of unspoken soulmate conversation that Luke can never be a part of. A pang of something a bitter and painful hits him when he realises that not only can he never be a part of it, he can never have it himself, because his soulmate is fucking _Ashton_. He’s never going to have this, and, not for the first time, he lets himself admit that it’s the majority of what makes it hurt so much.

“Okay,” Calum says carefully. “I’ll just speak for myself. You know I’ve been in love with Michael since- well, uh, as long as I can remember. That’s nothing new. What’s new is that I know Michael’s in love with me too. And, uh, that we’re sort of together now? That’s new.” And yeah, it is new, because Luke hadn’t even known about that. Sure, he’d guessed, with all the hushed conversations and Calum calling Michael _love_ like it was the easiest thing in the world, but it’s somehow different hearing confirmation of it. It stings more than he’d hoped it would. “Other than that, nothing’s changed. I still love you. You’re still my best friend, Michael’s still my best friend.” Calum pauses, clearly waiting for Luke to say something, but Luke just shrugs. He hasn’t got anything to say to that. 

“We’re not going to be all couple-y around you,” Michael says. “We know this isn’t the most ideal situation. But we’re not going to keep tiptoeing around you like we have been, so you’ve got to stop being an arsehole and actually support us. This is it now. This is how it is forever.” 

Luke has to swallow back the bile rising in his throat at that, at how easy it is for Michael and Calum to throw around words like forever. He only just manages to bite back a spiteful _well, how do you know that? Ashton and I didn’t work out, and we’re soulmates_ , but Michael can see it on his face. 

“All cards on the table,” he reminds Luke. 

“This isn’t going to work if we don’t get it all out,” Calum adds. “We’ll just build up resentment otherwise.” And yeah, Luke can kind of see his point, because his resentment’s been building for the past six months already. 

“Fine,” Luke says, and it’s a little snappy. “How do you know this is forever? I’m living proof that that’s not always the case.” The words twist in the air between them, Michael and Calum on one side of the table, Luke on the other, and Luke kind of hates himself and kind of hates them. 

“It just is,” Michael says simply, like Luke hasn’t just taken a nasty swipe at his relationship. 

“I’m not taking sides if it doesn’t work out,” Luke says, partially to drive the point home, partially because it’s something he’s worried about since they first became friends. Some of the most stressful times of his life have been when Michael and Calum have argued and both come running to him, each expecting him to take their side. 

“We wouldn’t expect you to,” Michael says smoothly. “But you have to support us in this. I don’t want to have to take sides either.” The _I’d choose Calum_ goes unspoken, but Luke hears it. 

“Say it,” he says, because apparently he’s some kind of masochist, and all cards on the table, right? Michael folds his arms. Calum looks like he’s about to cry. 

“I’d choose Calum,” Michael says, calm and even. The words cut straight through Luke’s heart, even though he’d known, he’s always known, that he’s second-best to both of them. If it had ever come to it, even before all this tattoo bullshit, neither of them would have chosen Luke. 

(He supposes that’s part of the soulmate business, but it doesn’t make it any less shitty.) 

“And you?” Luke says, rounding on Calum. He needs to hear it, somehow, needs to hear the brutal honesty, needs to hear their old friendship crumble all the way down before he can rebuild it with a new dynamic.

“Don’t,” Calum says, pleading. 

“Say it.” Luke’s tone is hard, but his voice wavers. “I need you to say it, Calum.” Calum swallows, hard, and Luke watches his mouth open and close a few times. 

“I’d choose Michael,” he mumbles eventually, and swipes at the corner of his eye. Luke immediately feels like shit. He doesn’t want Calum to cry. 

“I’m sorry, Cal,” he says quietly, and he means _I’m sorry for all of this, and I’m sorry for making you cry_. Calum nods, sniffing a little. 

“So you know where we stand,” Michael says, and he’s still calm, collected, put-together. Luke’s a little surprised - he’d expected Michael to be the one to fall to pieces, Calum to be the one to keep the conversation together. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, handing his unused napkin over to Calum for him to wipe his eyes. Calum gives him a watery smile. “Guess I know where I stand, too.” Michael looks at him, hard. 

“We’ve tiptoed around you for six months, Luke,” he says bluntly. “We’ve put all of this aside for you.” Luke swallows down the guilt that rises at that, because it’s true. They’ve put Luke first the whole time, ever since he found out it was Ashton, until the dinner a few weeks ago. They’ve been careful, they’ve been considerate, and Luke’s been a selfish dickhead, not letting them be who - and what - they are around him. 

“I know,” Luke says. “I- I really appreciate that.” 

“And?” Michael prompts. Luke sighs. 

“It fucking sucks,” he says. “I’ve always been second best to you two. It’s always been you two, and then me. And now that’s just- that’s never going to change. I see the way you look at each other, the way you touch each other, and.” He shrugs. “I’m always going to be an afterthought.” He’s almost willing Michael and Calum to contradict him, but they don’t. It doesn’t sting, though, this time, just a dull throb of hurt that Luke thinks might just actually be disguising his crippling sadness. He takes a deep breath, steeling himself for his next words. 

“And I- I think my biggest problem is that it hurts. It hurts because I’m never going to have this. I know that’s my problem, not yours, but.” He shrugs again. “You guys really drive it home.” And because _all cards on the fucking table_ , he adds: “It hurts more to be around you guys sometimes than it does to be around Ashton.” 

The words ring in the silence of the room. Luke thinks he’s never said anything more hurtful in his life, and also thinks he’s never said anything more honest. 

“Okay,” Michael says, and he sounds like he’s upset but trying his best to hide it. “Is that all?” Luke nods. He actually feels a bit better already, underneath all the hurt and confusion and aching sadness, because now they know how he feels and he knows how they feel and they can start to rebuild, start to move forward. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. “But you said all cards on the table.” 

“I did,” Michael says. 

“I’m glad you can be that honest with us, Luke,” Calum says, still sounding a little thick, and Luke presses his lips together. 

“I’m glad you can be honest with me too,” he admits. “I think- I think it shows. That we’re best friends.” It sounds stupid when he says it, like a ten-year-old on the playground, but both Calum and Michael nod sincerely, like that’s exactly what they were thinking. Luke has to blink back the tears that well up in his eyes at that, because fuck, he doesn’t deserve them. 

“I love you,” he says, and it comes out helpless. Both Michael and Calum smile at him, and Michael’s eyes suddenly look misty too. “I do. And I really am happy for you two, underneath all of this, I swear. It was the first thought I had when I realised you two were soulmates. I know I’m a selfish cunt. I just- I kind of needed to hear you say our friendship was going to change to accept it, to move on. I’m glad you didn’t lie to me.” 

“It’s okay,” Calum says. “Imagine how badly Michael would have coped with it if he’d been third-wheeling you and your soulmate.” All three of them laugh, but it’s choked and teary. 

“Fuck you,” Michael says, wiping his eyes. 

“You don’t have to tiptoe around me,” Luke says, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “I mean, I think it’ll still take me some getting used to, but that’s my problem. I’m happy for you, and I love you. And I don’t want to be an obstacle anymore.” He’s given up trying to control the tears now, because it’s Michael and Calum, and they’ve seen him in far worse states than this. 

(They saw him after Ashton.) 

“You were never an obstacle,” Michael says reassuringly, a little choked. 

“We made the choice to put you first, Luke,” Calum says, reaching over the table for Luke’s hand. “We might be soulmates, but we’re still nothing without you.” Tears are streaming freely down all of their faces now, and Luke squeezes Calum’s hand like it’s the only thing tying him to the planet. He reaches for Michael with his other hand, laces their fingers together, and sits there for a moment, crying silently with his two best friends. 

“I love you,” Calum says. “Both of you.”

“I love you too,” Michael says. “Mostly Luke, but yeah, you’re alright too, Cal.” Luke and Calum huff out shaky laughs at that. 

“We look like we’re doing a séance,” Luke says after a moment, when he sees Calum and Michael’s hands intertwined under the table, and Calum and Michael giggle weakly. He puts on a husky voice, and says: “Oh, spirits of third-wheeling, are you out there?” Calum and Michael laugh again, stronger this time, and Luke’s heart warms. They’re okay. They’re going to be okay. Everything is changing, but nothing has changed. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Michael says, grinning.

“We should probably feed the dogs,” Calum says, because Clifford and Duke have been huffing every few minutes for about twenty minutes now. Luke nods, and lets go of both Michael and Calum a little reluctantly, despite the fact that Michael had been about two seconds away from crushing his hand. 

They all get up, Calum and Luke to feed their respective dogs, Michael to start clearing the table. They’re in sync, they’re working in tandem, and they’re okay.

They’re okay. 

\-------

Luke hasn’t been back to the dog park since that Saturday. 

He’s walked near it, walked past it, _almost_ walked to it, but chickened out at the last minute. Calum’s words echo in his mind every time - _you shouldn’t let him change your routine_ \- and he knows, he _knows_ Calum’s right, but Luke’s a bit of a coward and a big fan of taking the easy way out. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sit uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach, though, every time he turns left instead of right into the park, but Clifford doesn’t seem to mind. 

Clifford, Luke has discovered, fucking loves the beach. 

It’s not too far from the park to the beach, so Luke’s taken to walking Clifford along the water instead, letting him splash around to his heart’s content in the waves lapping at the shore. Clifford doesn’t even tug in the direction of the park when they set off anymore, just bounces happily along the road to the sand. 

Luke tells Calum, one day, who off-hand remarks that he’s never actually taken Duke to the beach, and Luke, once he’s got over his initial shock, says they absolutely have to go. Calum rolls his eyes, and Luke calls Michael to convince him to go and pressure Calum into going - which, in hindsight, not the best idea, because as Michael sensibly points out, he’ll probably get sunstroke before they even make it to the beach. Nevertheless, Michael agrees, and so Calum agrees, and that’s how, a week later, they’re all ambling down the warm pavement to the beach. 

“Jesus, I’m fucking boiling,” Michael grumbles, plucking at his shirt. 

“It’s December, Mike, what d’you expect?” Luke says, jogging a little to keep up with Clifford. “You’ve lived through twenty-seven of them.” 

“Fuck, don’t say that,” Michael groans. “I’m so fucking old.” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, with a grin. Duke’s padding along calmly, stopping to sniff at flowers every few minutes, much to Clifford’s chagrin. “I’m your toyboy, now.” Michael scowls. 

“Fuck you,” he says, fanning himself wildly. “Fuck. I’m getting in the water as soon as we get there.” Luke rolls his eyes. 

“You’re so fucking melodramatic,” he says. “It’s six p.m. It’s not even hot.” 

“Alright, just because _you_ got all the Australian genes,” Michael snipes. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Luke says. 

“Blonde, blue-eyed, ability to surf,” Michael says, waving his hand dismissively, like it’s some kind of an explanation. 

“What? I can’t surf,” Luke says. 

“Well, you can stand up on a board, can’t you? Same thing.” 

“That’s not surfing,” Calum says, shaking his head. 

“I’m not taking criticism from _you_ ,” Michael says, because Calum can barely stand up straight on solid ground, as they round the corner and arrive at the beach. The sun is slowly setting, glittering on the water and making them all squint. 

“I’m getting in,” Michael declares, tugging his shirt off and flinging it at Calum. 

“Me too,” Luke says, before Calum has the chance to say anything. Clifford’s whining, begging to get to the water, and Luke hands Michael his lead for a moment while he wrestles his shirt off his sticky back. He turns his back to Calum, reaching out for Clifford’s lead, but is interrupted by Calum saying:

“You didn’t tell me it’s grown.” 

“Huh?” Luke says, turning back to Calum. Calum points at his back. 

“The tattoo.” Luke frowns. 

“What?”

“It’s grown.” Luke twists, trying to see. Fucking tattoo. Of course he got his on his shoulderblade. 

“I can’t- I’m sure it hasn’t,” Luke says. “You’ve only seen it once. You probably just don’t remember.” Michael’s walked over next to Calum, and he’s frowning now, too. 

“It’s got a dog on it now,” he says, and Luke scowls. 

“Come on, guys,” he says. “This isn’t funny.” 

“I’m not joking,” Calum says, and he sounds a little confused and a little worried. 

“Do they do that?” Michael says, addressing Calum, like Luke’s not even there. “Do they grow?” 

“Mine hasn’t,” Calum says, tilting his head up so the sunlight catches the black ink on his neck. 

“Nor mine,” Michael says, turning back to Luke, who’s still trying to see his own shoulderblade in vain. “Here, wait, I’ll take a photo.” Luke stills, slightly grumpy, ready for a _ha, ha, guys, I didn’t even believe you, what kind of a joke is that_ when Michael and Calum inevitably burst out laughing, but it never comes. 

Instead, Michael shoves his phone in front of Luke, and Luke grabs it and pulls it closer, because he hasn’t brought his glasses. He cups a hand over the screen, squinting to see, and he can make out the tattoo, dark and swirling on his skin. Waning moon, bird with drumstick - and, shit. Dalmatian, gazing up at the bird. 

“Shit,” he says, and he’s panicking, pawing at his back like it’s going to come off. All he can feel under his fingertips is warm skin. “Shit. Fuck. What the fuck? They don’t- they don’t just fucking grow, do they? Is this- is this, like, cancer, or something?” 

“What?” Michael says. 

“Look it up,” Calum tells Michael, who wrenches his phone back out of Luke’s hands and starts typing furiously. 

“Fuck,” Luke says, raking a hand through his hair. “Cal, what the fuck.” 

“Hey,” Calum says, soothing, reassuring. Even Clifford seems to have noticed something’s wrong, because he’s whining at Luke’s feet, no longer vibrating at the other end of the lead in Michael’s hand. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s- Cal, it’s not- it’s _grown_ ,” Luke says, almost frantic. “It’s not supposed to do that. Yours hasn’t done that.” 

“I know,” Calum says, like he wishes he could offer Luke an explanation. Luke stares at him wildly for a moment, and then pulls his own phone out of his pocket. 

“What are you doing?” Calum asks. 

“Calling Ashton,” Luke says, because deep in his gut, it feels like the only thing to do right now. 

“What- Luke, I don’t think that’s a good-” but it’s too late, Luke’s taking a few strides away from Michael and Calum, biting his lip as the dial tone rings. 

It cuts out after four rings, to a scrambling and a surprised: “Hello?” 

“Hi,” Luke says, and he can hear the panic in his own voice. 

“Luke? Are you okay?” 

“Has yours grown?” There’s a pause. 

“What?”

“Your tattoo. Has it grown?” 

“ _Grown_?” 

“Just answer the fucking question. Is there any more to it?” There’s a rustling sound, then a thud, like Ashton’s getting out of bed. 

“Uh, I don’t know, it’s- I can’t really see it unless I look in a mirror, hang on.” There’s the sound of padding footsteps, and Luke stares out at the horizon, watching the sun slowly lower itself into the water, counting the seconds as they pass. “Shit. _Shit_.” Luke’s stomach sinks. 

“It’s grown?” 

“Yeah. It’s- what the fuck? Are they meant to do this?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“I- what the fuck?”

“I don’t fucking _know_ , Ashton.” 

“Jesus, alright, don’t bite my fucking head off.” Luke clenches his teeth. 

“Fuck you,” he says. 

“Fuck _me_? Luke, you’re-” But Luke doesn’t stick around to hear what he is, hanging up and traipsing back to Michael and Calum, who are muttering quietly to each other, staring at Michael’s phone screen. 

“It’s grown,” he confirms, even though he thinks they all knew that. He didn’t have to call Ashton to confirm it, but somehow, he needed to.

“There’s something, but you’re not going to like it,” Michael says. 

“Tell me.” 

“There’s been a study,” Calum begins, and Jesus, Luke doesn’t have the time for this. He snatches Michael’s phone out of his hand and reads - study, London, tattoo growth, separate, choice. The words scramble in his mind and he reads the sentences over and over again until they make sense - _a study conducted in London, into soulmates who experienced tattoo growth, discovered it occurred when the mates made the active choice to remain separate_. 

Luke’s stomach lurches, and he feels the blood drain from his face so fast that he goes dizzy, catching Calum’s bicep to steady himself. 

“It’s a small study,” Calum says. “Six sets of soulmates. It’s not conclusive.” 

“Jesus,” Luke whispers, not even listening, mind racing. “Am I- Am I just going to end up covered in fucking- in tattoos about _Ashton_?” Calum bites his lip unhappily. Neither he nor Michael can answer that. 

Luke falls into the sand, hard, and Clifford immediately climbs into his lap, sniffing at him, quiet and concerned. Michael and Calum settle down next to him, and Calum wordlessly hands him back his shirt, like he knows Luke wants to pretend it’s not happening. Luke pulls it back on silently, and puts his head in his hands. 

“Can I just catch a fucking break?” he mumbles, voice cracking on the last word. Two sets of arms slip around him. 

They don’t swim, and Clifford doesn’t get to play in the water, but they get to watch the sun set together, and in between his spiralling thoughts Luke finds the time to think that that’s something.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI its me remember when i was like oh i have loads of uni work i might not be able to write for a while...SIKE i still have loads of uni work but am i doing it? technically yes i'm actually ahead of where i thought i would be which don't get it twisted isn't saying anything because 'where i thought i'd be' was writing my dissertation conclusion 8 hours before the deadline (yes that is literally what i planned for) SO! the fact that i've actually finished it now (or at least the first draft of it i need to cut like 800 words and do some heavy heavy HEAVY editing and change one entire section and do all my references and bibliography) is very exciting and i took the evening off and wrote this! sorry for the little paragraph i realise nobody cares about my life or uni work but i have literally nothing else on my mind currently i am gagging for the 4th of may 
> 
> BUT with that said . i do have an exam on friday so please wish me luck and tell me to get off the internet and stop writing 
> 
> also quick tw: mentions of suicidal thoughts
> 
> hope u are all staying safe and healthy x also i havent really been on ao3 because of work so i am behind on responding ot messages and i am so tired but i promise ill do it in the morning

Luke’s week is filled with research. 

He wakes up with bated breath, checking the tattoo in his bathroom mirror just to see whether it’s grown any more but still unable to breathe easy when he finds it hasn’t. The black ink bleeding across his pale skin makes his heart twist every time he sees it - it’s a beautiful reminder of the most terrible time of his life. Luke’s pretty sure he didn’t really understand the meaning of the word bittersweet until the tattoo appeared on his shoulderblade. 

Every spare moment of his day is spent reading scientific reports with words that he has to Google and make his head hurt. He scrolls through pages and pages of studies looking for any explanation of tattoo growth that isn’t _it’s going to grow indefinitely unless you sort something out with Ashton_ , which seems to be what the London study was concluding. He looks into people who don’t have tattoos, into people whose tattoos are unfinished, into people whose soulmates have died, into people whose soulmates are violent criminals (which makes Luke feel a little melodramatic, for the first time, because there are people who actually _want_ to be with their soulmate but find out their soulmate’s a serial killer, while Luke’s all torn up about his just because he broke Luke’s heart). He reads journal after journal detailing research into how the tattoos form, how they grow, what happens on people’s eighteenth birthdays, but nothing mentions the tattoos growing after that point. Everything seems to start and stop on people’s eighteenth birthdays.

Calum and Michael help, because of course they do. Lunchtimes and evenings are spent huddled around phones and computers, occasional mumbles of “This one says...oh, wait, no, never mind,” punctuating the silence. Luke’s not sure whether the lack of information on tattoo growth should make him feel better or worse, give him hope or discourage him, but it kind of manages to do both. 

The following Tuesday, Michael decides to suggest something they’ve all been thinking, but none of them have wanted to say, because uncertainty might be better than its potential consequences. 

“You should email the researchers,” he says. He doesn’t need to say which ones, even though they’ve looked into endless researchers over the past week. Luke sighs, and lets his eyes flutter shut. He knows. They all know. 

“I know,” he says. “I should.” He can hear the trepidation in his own voice. 

“We can write it together,” Calum says, rubbing at his eyes, because he’s been staring at screens on Luke’s behalf since the minute he woke up. 

“What do I even say?” Luke says, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “‘Hi, my soulmate is my archnemesis and my tattoo grew, tell me how to stop it?’” 

“Archnemesis?” Michael says, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Well, who else would my archnemesis be?” 

“Whoever originally named Clifford?” Calum offers. 

“Hey,” Michael says, pointing at Calum accusingly. “That might be your surname one day.” Calum scoffs. 

“Calum Clifford? Are you insane?” 

“What, like Michael Hood is any better?” 

“Not my fault you have a shitty name,” Calum says, with a shrug. Michael makes a noise of outrage, like he’s gearing himself up for a point-evidence-explain destruction of Calum’s point, and Luke busies himself with opening up his email. The idea of Calum and Michael getting married is more than enough to bring that bitter taste back into his mouth, to make him have to forcibly quash down envy and sadness and anger. Calum seems to sense it, because he shoots Michael a look and turns back to Luke. 

“Have you got their email?” he asks. Luke clicks back onto the report that he hasn’t shut for over a week, scrolls to the bottom and nods. 

“What do I say?” he asks. His stomach is churning, already nervous for the response to the email of which he hasn’t even typed a single word yet. He might not even get a response, he tells himself. They’re busy people. They might not have time to read their emails. Or maybe ‘themightyhemmo1996@gmail.com’ is embarrassing enough to get sent straight to junk mail. 

“Describe the situation,” Michael says, scratching Clifford behind his ears. Clifford almost purrs, leaning into Michael’s touch. “Say you dated, and it didn’t work out, and you both know you’re soulmates but given that you’ve tried it and it didn’t work you’re not sure why your tattoo has grown.” Luke nods, typing as Michael speaks. 

“It might help if you gave the reason,” Calum says, a little tentative. Luke’s fingers hesitate over the keyboard. “I mean, like, if you specifically say Ashton fell out of love. That’s got to mean _something_ , right, given that they’re soulmate tattoos?” Luke hesitates another moment, considering - he’s not really a big fan of sharing all this personal information, but Calum’s right, he might get a more accurate answer the more he shares - before nodding and typing. 

**From:** <themightyhemmo1996@gmail.com>  
**To:** <c.r.johnson@ucl.ac.uk>, <j.m.newbury@ucl.ac.uk>   
**Subject:** Soulmate Tattoo Growth

_Dear Mr Johnson and Ms Newbury,_

_I recently stumbled across your soulmate tattoo growth study and was hoping you could provide some insight into my own situation. My soulmate and I dated prior to the tattoos appearing, which ended due to him falling out of love with me. Both of us are aware that we are soulmates, and we have had a conversation about what this means for us and ultimately decided to remain apart. However, since this conversation, and having had a chance meeting, both of our tattoos have grown. Given that we have already dated and it did not work out, I am looking for an explanation and, if possible, a method for preventing it growing any further._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Luke Hemmings_

He reads it out to Michael and Calum, who both nod thoughtfully. 

“Sounds good,” Calum says. Michael nods his agreement. Luke presses send before he can reconsider, and then slams his laptop shut and stands up, stretching. Clifford jumps off Michael’s lap and runs over to Luke, wagging his tail. 

“Thanks for helping me,” Luke says, bending down to pat Clifford’s head and trying his best to push the email out of his head. There’s nothing he can do about it now, he tells himself, willing the knot of anxiety in his stomach to loosen.

“Don’t worry, we didn’t do it for free,” Michael reassures him. 

“We’ll be calling in this favour at some point,” Calum adds. 

“As long as it’s not for doing the Wellson report for Chris,” Luke says, cracking his back and relishing the way it makes Michael wince. Calum winces too, but Luke thinks that’s probably more to do with the Wellson report than his back. “Fuck, I can’t be arsed to cook. Pizza?” 

“Why even bother phrasing that as a question with him in here?” Calum says in exasperation, nodding at Michael as Michael’s eyes light up. 

“Fuck you,” Michael says, but there’s no heat behind the words and he’s already pulled his phone out. “Arty’s?” Calum and Luke nod, because where else would they order from, and Luke flops back onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. 

“I’m not letting you bring a Hawaiian pizza into my house, though,” Luke warns Michael. Michael blinks innocently at him. 

“Hi, I’d like to order three pizzas,” he says, maintaining eye contact with Luke. “Two pepperoni, and one with ham and pineapple.” Luke rolls his eyes and flips him off. “Oh, is that a Hawaiian? I had _no_ idea. Yes, just one, please.” 

“Dickhead,” Luke says, and Michael smiles at him sweetly as he flips him off in return. 

\-------

On Friday, Luke oversleeps. 

That’s not particularly out of the ordinary, except this time, Luke _really_ oversleeps. Like, he-should-be-at-his-desk-by-the-time-he-gets-out-of-bed kind of oversleeping. 

He swears under his breath as he fumbles with his phone, firing off a text to Calum to cover for him if Phil happens to walk into their office and ask where he is, and tries to pull his clothes on as he’s brushing his teeth. He doesn’t have time to check whether or not he’s got everything he needs, just tears out of the house and sprints all the way to the station. There’s a train to Central idling at the platform, looking like it could close its doors any minute, so Luke legs it onto the nearest carriage, swinging himself into the first empty set of seats he can find and trying to catch his breath. 

The train doors close about twenty seconds later, when Luke’s breathing is starting to even out, but Luke barely notices, already engrossed in his phone. He’s so engrossed in sending Calum a text to say he’s on his way, in fact, that he doesn’t notice someone looming over him, until he hears a “Luke?” that startles him into looking up. His face drops into a scowl almost immediately as his stomach plummets, because what the fuck. 

It’s Ashton fucking Irwin. 

Again. 

“What the fuck?” Luke says, not sure whether he’s saying it in surprise or anger. 

“Hi,” Ashton says, and he’s definitely just surprised. “You’re not usually here.” 

“I woke up late,” Luke says, even though he doesn’t owe Ashton an explanation for his movements. 

“Can I sit down?” 

“No,” Luke says, because it’s early, he’s frazzled, and he’s late for work. “The train is empty. Sit somewhere else.” 

“We should talk,” Ashton says, which seems to be, like, the only fucking sentence he’s capable of saying. 

“About?” Ashton stares at him like he’s an idiot. 

“Uh, the tattoos growing?” he says, and, yeah, okay. That’s kind of fair. Luke _had_ hung up on Ashton mid-conversation, after all, and then sent off an email about their situation to some researchers without telling him. 

“Fine,” Luke says, indicating the seat opposite him with one hand and placing his phone on the table between them with the other. Ashton slides into the seat opposite him, raking a hand through his black hair, and Luke can’t help the way his eyes are drawn to Ashton’s biceps with the movement. He’s _definitely_ more muscular than he’d been the last time Luke had seen him. Well, not the last time, but the last-last time. Actually, it’s the last-last-last time, now. Luke doesn’t like that. 

“I’ve been looking it up,” Ashton begins, and Luke waves him away. 

“The London study?” he says, cutting to the chase, because he really doesn’t want to talk to Ashton any longer than he has to. Ashton bites his lip, and nods. “Yeah. I emailed them.” He waits for the frown, for the _you told them? Luke, I really would have liked to have been part of that decision_ , but it never comes. 

“Me too,” Ashton says. Luke frowns. It’s hypocritical, but that doesn’t sit well with him. It makes his skin crawl, that Ashton’s emailed them too, because he’s probably spun the story in a way that makes him sound better. 

“What did you say?” Luke says, a little sharply. Ashton shrugs, but Luke sees the edge of tension in his posture. He pushes down the discomfort that arises at the realisation that he still knows Ashton’s mannerisms, that the little twist of his mouth means he’s uncomfortable about something. 

“I told them the truth,” Ashton says. 

“ _The_ truth?” Luke says, arching an eyebrow. “Or _your_ truth?” 

“I told them my side of the story,” Ashton says, which means he’s given them this whole _I was just scared of commitment, I still loved you_ bullshit, with maybe a smidge of _I tried to win my soulmate back over but he wasn’t having it_. “Wait, what did you say?” 

“That you fell out of love with me.” Ashton stares at him for a moment, and then shakes his head. 

“Fuck,” he says, and Luke thinks that summarises it pretty aptly. “Have you heard back?” Luke shrugs. He never really checks his non-work emails - it’s usually full of junk he signed up to ten years ago and has never been bothered to unsubscribe from. 

“Haven’t looked,” he says. 

“I haven’t,” Ashton says, even though Luke hadn’t asked. 

“Good for you.” Ashton bites his lip, like he wants to say something else, but then sinks back into his seat, like he’s thought better of it. Luke’s glad - this morning has been shitty enough without having another lengthy conversation with Ashton about their _feelings,_ or whatever. 

Ten minutes pass, and Luke unlocks his phone to do something, _anything_ other than give Ashton any indication that he’s open to another conversation, ending up playing Tetris and shielding it from Ashton’s view so it looks like he’s possibly texting a cute guy, or something. He’s actually doing pretty well, getting close to beating his high score, when Ashton says: “What’s yours?” 

“Huh?” Luke says, momentarily distracted. He drops the piece in the wrong place, and swears under his breath. Fucking Ashton. 

“What did you get?” Ashton presses. “When it grew?” 

“Spot,” Luke says. 

“Oh,” Ashton says, in a small voice, like it’s an answer he hadn’t wanted to hear. That piques Luke’s interest, despite himself. 

“Why?” 

“I- uh.” Ashton looks out of the window at the grey buildings bathed in summer sun. “Mine’s your dog. Clifford.” 

“Right,” Luke says slowly, because he feels like he’s missing something here. 

“Do you think-” Ashton says, and then cuts himself off, biting his lip. 

“Do I think _what_ , Ashton?” Luke says, a touch irritably. Ashton shrugs, and Luke’s about ready to throttle him. “Spit it out, Jesus Christ. I don’t have time for this.” 

“It’s just- we got them after meeting in the dog park,” Ashton says, all in a rush. “Do you think it’s going to happen every time we bump into each other?” Luke blinks at him. 

“What, you think I’m going to get a fucking train on my back now?” he says sarcastically. 

“I don’t know,” Ashton says thoughtfully, completely ignoring Luke’s sarcasm. It makes Luke’s blood boil a little bit, that Ashton’s disregarding him like that, and he clenches his teeth. _Professional. Arm’s length. No emotion._ “But it seems a bit coincidental, doesn’t it?” 

“No,” Luke says, through gritted teeth. “There’s only so many things about you the universe could turn into a tattoo. Spot’s one of them.” 

“What if whenever we see each other-” 

“Jesus, Ashton, it doesn’t matter ‘what if’, because we’re not going to see each other anymore, are we?” Luke snaps. “I think I’ve made myself pretty clear.” Ashton looks a little taken aback, blinking at Luke. 

“Luke,” he says slowly, patronisingly, like Luke’s a child that needs something obvious explaining to him, as the train starts to slow down. Luke’s going to dust off his old boxing skills and break Ashton’s nose. “We broke up two years ago. How many times did we see each other in those two years?” 

“None, until a month ago, which is what I fucking wa-” 

“Exactly,” Ashton says calmly, cutting Luke off. The train judders to a halt, as Luke stares at Ashton furiously, trying to work out what he’s saying. He’s so fucking full of himself, honestly - _exactly_ , what the fuck is that supposed to mean? He’s always liked speaking in tongues, making himself feel intelligent, like he’s better than Luke- “This is your stop, isn’t it?” 

Luke grinds his teeth, but Calum can only stave Phil off for so long, so he gets up and gathers his things together, grabbing his phone and bag and getting up while counting down from ten in his head to stop himself saying something he regrets. 

“Bye,” Ashton calls, when Luke rounds the corner to the doors, like they’re fucking friends. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Luke spits back, earning himself a shocked look from the guy he shoulders past to get off the train. It’s not professional, it’s not arm’s length, and it’s definitely not devoid of emotion, but _fuck,_ it feels good. 

\-------

“What the fuck crawled up _your_ arse?” Calum asks, when Luke snaps at him for the fifth time in about half an hour. Luke sighs, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

“Ashton was on my train this morning.” 

“What?” Calum’s irritability is suddenly replaced with pure shock. “Is he stalking you?” 

“Possibly,” Luke says. “God. I fucking hate him, Cal.” 

“What’d he do?” 

“He _always_ thinks he’s better than me,” Luke says angrily. “Like, he’s always been the one that’s into philosophy, reads seven hundred newspapers every morning, does yoga and reads religious texts and all that, and he’s always looked down on me for not doing that, like that somehow makes me less intelligent than him. He talks to me like I’m a fucking _kid_ , talks to me in riddles because he likes it when I have to ask him what he means, likes the fucking _power trip_ -” 

“Hey,” Calum says, cutting Luke off, and Luke stops, breathing heavily. “I know.” 

“I hate him,” Luke says again, but it’s smaller this time, and he feels tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. Jesus. He’s so over crying over Ashton Irwin. 

“I know,” Calum repeats, gentle and calm. “You want to get some fresh air?” Luke doesn’t, really, because it’s about thirty-five degrees outside and it’s hot enough in the air-conditioned office, but he nods anyway. Calum scrapes his chair back and follows Luke out of the office, down the stairs to the fire exit that Chris had disabled the alarm from so that he could go out to smoke and only told Calum and Luke about, and Luke gulps down breaths of the muggy December air as soon as they’re outside. It helps to ground him, feeling the hot breeze stealing across his face, and he closes his eyes and tilts his head into the bright afternoon sun, letting spots dance across the inside of his eyelids. 

“What’d he say?” Calum asks, after a few minutes have passed and Luke’s breathing is steady and even. 

“Some fucking bullshit,” Luke mumbles. “He got Clifford, and apparently that means something, because we didn’t see each other for two years. Like, what the fuck is that, a cryptic crossword clue? Does he think I work for ASIS?” There’s a pause, and then the pause becomes too long to be comfortable, and Luke cracks open an eyelid. Calum’s staring at him, something between shock and horror etched across his features. “What?” 

“Jesus, Luke,” Calum says. “Fuck.”

“ _What_ , Cal, I’ve fucking _had it_ with this cryptic _bullshi_ -” 

“What if the tattoos are going to grow every time you bump into each other?” Calum says. 

“Yeah, Calum, I got that, I’m not _that_ fucking stupid,” Luke says, exasperated. “He said that, but I pointed out that it doesn’t matter either way, because I’m not going to see him.” 

“That’s exactly his point,” Calum says. “You haven’t seen him in two years, and now you bump into him twice in the space of a couple of weeks.” And, oh. 

Oh.

 _Oh_. 

“What the fuck?” Luke demands, because he can’t think of anything better that sums up all the thoughts racing through his mind right now. 

“I mean, think about it,” Calum says slowly, a little hesitantly, like Luke’s about to bite his head off. 

(Luke might bite his head off.) 

“I’m thinking,” Luke says, and it comes out almost a growl. 

“The tattoos, they come fr- well, we _think_ they must come from the universe, right? So what if the universe is pulling the strings so you’re bumping into each other now?” Luke stares at him in disbelief. 

“That’s the worst theory I’ve ever heard,” he says after a moment. “If the universe was pulling any fucking strings it wouldn’t have let me and Ashton date in the first place, and it definitely wouldn’t have let Ashton break up with me in a way that nearly made me _kill myself_.” 

The words ring harsh in the thick December air, and Luke wants to claw them back as soon as they leave his lips. It’s an unspoken rule that they don’t talk about it, they don’t _say_ that Luke nearly killed himself over Ashton. They can allude to it, make polite euphemisms, but they don’t _say_ it. 

“Luke,” Calum says, and his tone is soft, and Luke doesn’t want his pity. 

“No, Cal,” Luke says, and it’s a little too harsh. “Sorry.” Calum tries to protest, but Luke cuts in first- “No, I’m sorry. I’m just- it’s not been a good day, but that doesn’t mean I get to take it out on you. I know you’re only trying to help. I just...I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about it.” He exhales, raking a hand through his hair, and Calum puts a hand on his forearm. 

“Hey,” he says, calm, reassuring. “It’s okay, Luke.” 

It’s not, Luke thinks, as he tries for a weak smile. It’s not okay, because it’s Ashton, and he doesn’t know when it’s going to be okay again. 

\-------

A text arrives from Ashton when Luke’s packing up to leave. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
_ _I was right._

Luke blocks his number. 

\-------

Luke changes his routine, after that. 

Blocking Ashton’s number made him feel kind of worse, kind of jumpier and leaves a twist somewhere deep in his gut which he doesn’t really understand, so he unblocks him after a bottle of red wine on Saturday night. He steadfastly refuses to look in the mirror, though, because the more he’s been thinking about Calum’s (and, he supposes, Ashton’s) conspiracy theory, the more it seems to root itself in his mind, twining itself around all of his thoughts. It’s just easier not to think about it, to focus on the fourteen thousand other things he has to do and ignore the way his back feels like it’s on fire whenever he devotes any attention to it. 

He finally checks his emails on Sunday evening. He’s got twenty minutes before he needs to be at Calum’s, so he figures it’s a good time to see whether the researchers have got back to him since he can’t sit and freak out about it, and he’s got Clifford curled up on his lap serenely, so he feels grounded enough to look.

There’s a bunch of shit, as he’d expected, and he sits with his finger on the backspace key for about five minutes, deleting all the Nike subscription list emails (why the fuck do they send out so many?), until one catches his eye. 

_RE: Soulmate Tattoo Growth_

Luke’s palms are immediately slick with sweat, heart pounding in every inch of his body as he clicks the email open. Clifford rolls over in his lap with a small whine, resting his head on Luke’s thigh, like he can sense Luke’s anxiety. 

**From:** <c.r.johnson@ucl.ac.uk>  
**To:** <themightyhemmo1996@gmail.com>  
**Cc:** <j.m.newbury@ucl.ac.uk>   
**RE:** Soulmate Tattoo Growth

_Dear Mr Hemmings,_

_Thank you very much for your email. Apologies for the length of time it took to send a response, but as you can imagine we are currently inundated with queries._

_Your case is of particular interest to us. Though we cannot currently provide you with any concrete answers, there are many elements to your particular situation which we would like to explore and perhaps discover answers to, if you would be willing to be a part of our study. I will attach both mine and my colleague’s contact details should you decide to take us up on our offer._

_We believe your soulmate contacted us too, and we have made the same offer to him._

_Kind regards,_

_Colin Johnson_

Beneath the email are two sets of phone numbers, emails and addresses to a university in London. 

Luke swallows, hard. It’s far from the answer he had wanted, although he’d known deep down that expecting a _don’t worry, everything will be_ _fine_ response had been wishful thinking on a new level. He’d never expected them to want to _study_ him, though, to be reduced to some kind of scientific experiment. Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with him. 

He closes his laptop, not wanting to think about it anymore, and tips Clifford off his lap. 

“C’mon, Cliff,” he says. “Let’s go to Calum’s.” 

\-------

“You’re a fucking cheat,” Michael yells, when Calum scores again, and Luke can’t help laughing at the look of pure outrage on his face as he rounds on Calum. “How the fuck did you do that? How the _fuck_ did you do that?” He’s shaking his controller in Calum’s face, but Calum just laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Pure talent,” he says, grinning at Michael. Michael scoffs, somehow managing to sound furious while doing it. 

“You’re _cheating,_ ” he insists, and Calum laughs harder, curling in on himself on the sofa. “Luke, help me out.” Luke holds his hands up, laughing as he shakes his head. “You fucking bastard. What do I keep you around for if not to gang up on Calum with me?” 

“To stare at my arse,” Luke says, because Michael stares at his arse a lot. 

“You do stare at his arse a lot,” Calum tells Michael. Michael squawks, incensed. 

“You’re not allowed to gang up on _me_!” he says indignantly. “Cliff, you’re on my side, right? You think Cal’s a dirty cheat, don’t you?” Clifford just stares up at Michael, wagging his tail happily. “He thinks you’re a dirty cheat, Cal.” 

“That’s funny,” Calum says conversationally, “because I think he was actually saying _Mike, you’re a sore loser_?” 

“I heard something that sounded like _Michael’s just not very good at Fifa_?” Luke adds innocently. Calum nods, mock-thoughtful. 

“I’m pretty sure that was in there somewhere,” he agrees. 

“Fuck you both,” Michael says, glaring at each of them in turn. “I’m good at Fifa. I’ve been playing it since Fifa 06.” 

“On the fucking Wii, Mike, that doesn’t count,” Luke says. 

“Maybe Fifa 22 just isn’t for you,” Calum says with a shrug, eyes gleaming. 

“They’re all the fucking _same_ , Calu-” Michael starts, before he seems to realise what Calum’s suggesting. “Fuck you, fucking-” He doesn’t finish his sentence, choosing instead to launch himself at Calum, who squeals, laughter turning to gasps for air and frantic pleas of _stop, please, Mikey, please, stop, Luke, help me_. Luke takes a wary step back - there’s no telling who Michael’s going to attack when he feels slighted by both of them, and Luke’s even more ticklish than Calum, so he’s not taking any chances, thank you very much. 

Eventually, Michael relents, and Calum wheezes, red-faced and panting, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. Michael sits back, pushing his fringe out of his face with a satisfied look on his face. 

“Fuck you,” Calum manages, gazing at the ceiling. Michael grins. 

“If you ask nicely,” he says. Luke pulls a face.

“See if I ever suck your dick again,” Calum says, still speaking to the ceiling, and Luke can’t help the choked noise that escapes his throat. Calum pulls his head up, like he’s just remembered Luke’s there, and Michael’s grin widens at the horrified look on Luke’s face. 

“Okay,” Luke says, as Calum struggles to push himself back into a seated position on the sofa. “Ground rules. I don’t want to hear about your sex life.” Michael rolls his eyes, still grinning. 

“Prude,” he says, but he doesn’t mean it. Luke just flips him off. 

“Can I lay a ground rule?” Calum says. “Michael has to admit he’s bad at Fifa before I consider making you all dinner.” Michael crosses his arms. 

“Firstly, that’s not a _ground rule_ ,” he says. 

“I’m not taking criticism,” Calum says. 

“Secondly,” Michael continues breezily, like Calum had never spoken, “I respect you too much to lie to you.” 

“Good, because I’m starving,” Luke says, looking at Michael expectantly. Michael scowls. 

“Let’s settle this in a _real_ football match,” Calum says. “Five a side next Saturday.” Michael doesn’t look too keen on the idea, and even Luke hesitates. 

“It’s fucking December, Cal,” he says. “I’m going to keel over from heatstroke after twenty minutes.” 

“ _You’re_ going to keel over from heatstroke?” Michael says. “I’m probably not going to even make it onto the _pitch._ ” 

“Hey,” Calum says. “You both owe me favours. I’m calling them in.”

“What fucking favour do I owe you?” Michael says indignantly. 

“You know,” Calum says pointedly. 

“I don’t,” Michael says. Calum’s making a face at him, one that Luke doesn’t have to be his soulmate to read, a _you know what I’m talking about, get the hint, I can’t say it in front of Luke_. 

“Yes, you do,” Calum says, eyes flicking to Luke. Michael follows his gaze, and then realisation dawns on his face. 

“Oh,” he says, sounding distinctly annoyed about it. “Fine. But I’m only playing one half.” 

“I don’t owe you any favours,” Luke says confidently, when Calum’s gaze slides over to him. 

“Think again,” Calum says, grinning. “I told you I don’t help with emails for free.” Luke groans. 

“That was a _joke_ ,” he says. 

“Nope,” Calum says cheerfully. “Five a side. Saturday. Ten o’clock.” 

“ _Ten_?” Luke’s not sure who sounds more scandalised, him or Michael. 

“Ten,” Calum confirms, and Luke’s own groan is drowned out by Michael’s. 

\-------

On Tuesday, Luke finally snaps. 

He’s somehow managed to pull his pyjama top off in his sleep, finding it discarded and drenched in sweat on the floor when he wakes up. There’s no point putting it back on, because it’s fucking boiling, so he just pads into the bathroom shirtless, yawning and scratching his arm. 

He brushes his teeth, washes his face, puts on his moisturiser, and then turns to wipe his hands clean - and catches a flash of black ink as he does so. 

Wet hands forgotten, he turns back to the mirror, staring at himself. He watches his own blue eyes blink back at him as he weighs up his options. He could keep ignoring it, pretending it’s not there, and he’d probably be okay at it, for a while. He could probably go another few weeks pretending nothing’s happened, distracting himself like he has been for the past five days - especially with Christmas just around the corner - but, when he’s honest with himself, he knows it’d always be there, at the back of his mind. 

It can’t hurt to look, he tells his reflection. Mirror Luke just blinks at him, looking lost and confused, frown lines that weren’t there eight months ago etched into his forehead. It can’t hurt to look, because it won’t change anything. Whatever is there is there, whether or not Luke’s aware of it. His ignorance won’t make it go away, or stop it changing. 

Taking a deep breath, he steels himself, keeping his eyes locked on his reflection, and turns around.

He immediately sees four numbers in an arc above the moon, and his heart sinks. _09:47_. 

He’s not entirely sure what the numbers mean, but he can hazard a guess. With one final glance at the tattoo, now taking up a large portion of his shoulderblade, he turns back and grabs his phone off the sink, scrolling back through his conversation with Calum to Friday morning. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _I’m on the train._

He remembers sending that text. He’d sent it just as the train had started pulling out of the station, just before Ashton had appeared. With trembling fingers - which, okay, he thinks is fair given the situation he’s in - he swipes to the left on the message to see the timestamp. 

09:47am. 

The numbers blink back at him, grey on white, like they don’t know they’ve just confirmed something that cannot, _cannot_ be true. 

Luke cannot have his two options be _work something out with Ashton_ or _become a canvas for Ashton._ There’s got to be a third option, a get-out-of-jail-free clause, _something_ that isn’t telling him he’s either doomed to spend eternity with the last person he ever wants to see again, or become a mess of black ink and have his body display Ashton rather than being his own. 

He barely even knows what he’s doing until the phone is at his ear. 

“You finally looked?” Ashton says, and Luke hates it, _hates_ that Ashton knows he’s tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. 

“It can’t be right,” Luke says, voice too loud in the small bathroom, bouncing off all the tiles and feeding back into his own ears. 

“What’s yours?” 

“The time the train left,” Luke says, and his voice sounds a little shaky. He hopes Ashton can’t hear the tremors. 

“Mine’s the time it arrived,” Ashton says, even though Luke hadn’t asked, he never fucking asks, because he doesn’t want to _know_. 

“Shit,” Luke says, and he hears a quiet whine and some scratching at the bathroom door. He doesn’t have the energy to let Clifford in though, can barely even keep himself upright, steadying himself on the sink with the hand that isn’t clutching his phone.

“I know,” Ashton says. “Did they email you back?” Luke doesn’t have to ask who _they_ are, just nods, numbly. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Do you want to do it?” 

Luke hesitates. He hadn’t thought about Ashton even giving him a choice - he’d assumed Ashton would say whatever Ashton said, and Luke would say whatever Luke said. He hadn’t considered their answers _not_ being separate. 

“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. 

“Okay,” Ashton says. “I mean. It’s a big decision.” 

“I know, Ashton,” Luke says, frustrated that _this_ is what Ashton wants to focus on, like they don’t have bigger things to worry about, like Luke’s skin becoming a museum to Ashton Fletcher Irwin. “I just- I don’t have time to think about it right now, okay?” 

“Hey,” Ashton says, voice kind, gentle, soothing. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’ll get through this.” 

A sudden wave of _calmness_ surges through Luke’s veins, loosening his lungs, his heart, his mind. It’s like nothing Luke’s ever felt before, like falling asleep when he’s comfortably tired and waking up slowly and the sensation of the sun on his skin all at the same time. 

It’s the scariest fucking thing Luke’s ever experienced in his life. 

“Jesus Christ,” he gasps out, heart constricting, lungs tightening, mind narrowing, and he stabs the ‘end call’ button as he sinks to the floor. His phone clatters onto the tiles, and Luke vaguely registers that it’s probably cracked, and the whining and scratching outside the door is getting louder and louder and Luke can’t fucking _think_ , can’t fucking _breathe_ because everything is Ashton, and nothing is Luke. Everything is Ashton, like he’s twenty-four all over again, sobbing on this bathroom floor after throwing up God knows how much alcohol. 

It’s that thought that focuses him, sobers him, pulls him back to reality and away from his racing mind, because he’s _not_ going to do that this time. Ashton’s taken enough from him, taken love and happiness and tears and almost his fucking life, and Luke’s not going to do that this time. 

His vision swims back into relative clarity as he focuses on his breathing like his therapist always said - in, hold, out; in, hold, out - and he wrestles himself to his knees to pull down the door handle. As soon as there’s a crack in the door, Clifford’s racing through, and Luke releases the door handle with a bang and falls back against the bathtub as Clifford climbs all over him, still whining, licking every inch of Luke’s skin. Luke wraps his arms around him, and Clifford carries on licking, warm and rough against Luke’s skin. It grounds him, reminding him that he’s here, he’s alive, he’s got Clifford to look after, he’s got the cool bathtub pressed uncomfortably against his spine. His shaky breathing evens out, and he feels colour returning to his face. Clifford begins to settle a little, only licking at Luke’s chin, and when Luke thinks about the fact that he’s now going to have to shower and be late for work the tightness in his chest loosens a little. 

Work. That’s a safe thought. That’s somewhere Ashton can never touch him. That’s all Luke. 

Luke sets Clifford down, much to Clifford’s discontent, and gets to his feet, a little unsteady. He pulls his phone off the floor with him - great, there’s a new crack running smoothly from the top left corner to the middle of the right hand side of the screen - and unlocks it, typing out a message to Michael and Calum with only slightly trembling fingers. 

**_Me_ ** _  
_ _I think I just had my first soulmate experience._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL guess who did her first exam and then wrote another 6k of this? you fuckin guessed it ME!! ive had sweetness by jimmy eat world on repeat for quite literally the past 3 hours so i think i am spiralling but honestly i feel so brain-dead from my exam that i can't even tell anymore i do not feel like a real person right now 
> 
> anyway exciting news is that once my dissertation is submitted on monday i only have 3 exams to go and they're all at the end of may so i am likely going to go fucking FERAL on fic-writing that probably isnt exciting news to most of you you're probably sick of seeing me pop up in the tags or in your inbox if youre subscribed (which!! if you are thank you so much) but anyway. i will try and not overwrite and bore all of you but i am enjoying writing so much after all this time especially this fic i have so many IDEAS 
> 
> also idk why i keep finishing these chapters so late its nearly 1am and im still not in my pyjamas but im so exhausted so i am going to bed and i will respond to all of your lovely lovely comments in the morning but know that i have read them and i am still smiling about them and i am !! so lucky to have you leaving such sweet comments thank you so much i cannot tell you enough how much they mean to me 
> 
> as always pls talk to me on [tumblr](http://calumcest.tumblr.com) xo

Soulmate experiences are something Luke doesn’t know much about.

Frankly, it’s something that nobody knows much about. They seem to vary from soulmate pairing to soulmate pairing - some people find they get unwell if they’re away from their soulmate for too long, some people find they can feel what their soulmate is feeling when they touch - but the majority of people don’t seem to get them at all. The soulmate tattoos are still fairly fresh - it’s only been seven months since they first appeared, and researchers keep assuring the public that it will likely be decades before they fully understand them - and because Luke’s leaves a sour taste in his mouth, he’s never looked into them, so all the information he’s gleaned about them is from hearsay. 

Michael and Calum have never mentioned any soulmate experiences, so Luke’s a little taken aback when they discuss the morning’s events on Tuesday evening. 

“Explain it again,” Michael says, curled up on Calum’s sofa clutching a glass of lemonade. Luke had sent Michael and Calum garbled messages in the morning, trying to explain what had happened and that yes, he’s okay, he’s just a little shaken, while simultaneously trying to get dressed. He’d managed to find time to explain it properly to Calum at lunch, but all Michael’s had to work off were the messages Luke had shouted at his Siri while buttoning his shirt, which are barely even English. 

(“Oh, that was Siri?” Michael says, sounding genuinely surprised, when Luke explains why the messages were so jumbled. Luke flips him off.) 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. “I was freaking out about the tattoo growing again, and then he spoke to me, and it was like...like I’d never have another care in the world.” Michael frowns. 

“Luke got the time his train left the station, and Ashton got the time it arrived,” Calum adds. Michael nods, still frowning. 

“So it’s growing every time you bump into each other?” he asks. Luke shrugs uncomfortably. 

“Well, I mean, it’s only happened twice, so…” he trails off, knowing he’s not convincing anybody in the room, least of all himself. 

“And what, just hearing his voice made you feel better?” Michael says. 

“No, it was- uh, you know that tone Calum uses when you’re anxious about something? It was like that.” Michael nods again, thoughtfully. 

“You ever heard of that?” he says to Calum. Calum shakes his head. 

“We’re the only ones I know that have a soulmate experience, though,” he says. Luke blinks at them. 

“You have a soulmate experience?” he says. Calum and Michael suddenly look a little guilty, and exchange a look. 

“We didn’t tell you because it was...y’know,” Michael says, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. 

“We didn’t want to upset you,” Calum says.

“What?” Luke demands. 

“We...share dreams,” Michael says, a little hesitantly. 

“You- you share dreams?” Calum nods. 

“We dream the same things,” he says. Luke stares at them. They’ve spent the last seven months sharing dreams, and neither of them thought to tell him. That kind of fucking stings. 

“Right,” he says, after a moment, not entirely sure how to process that, but all too aware of the hurt and irritation bubbling in his stomach. “You should have told me that.” 

“Well, to be fair, mate, the tattoos are a bit of a touchy subject for you,” Michael says. 

“So is my best friends lying to me,” Luke says, a little shortly. 

“We didn’t lie,” Michael points out. 

“You lied by omission.” 

“Jesus, Luke,” Calum says, throwing his hands up in frustration. “You would have been pissed if we’d told you, and now you’re pissed that we didn’t. We just tried to do what we thought was best for you.” Luke clenches his teeth. 

“I can decide that for myself,” he says. 

“Not really,” Michael says. “You keep calling Ashton, even after what he did to you.” 

“He’s my fucking soulmate, Mike, what am I meant to do?” Luke says hotly. 

“Just because he’s your soulmate doesn’t mean you have to go running back to him,” Michael snaps. That’s a low fucking blow, and they all know it. Luke sees it in the way Calum’s brow creases and his eyes flit to Luke, in the way Michael’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to retract it. 

“Don’t bother,” Luke says flatly, before Michael has the chance to speak. “At least I know what you think now.” 

“He doesn’t mean that,” Calum tries. 

“He can speak for himself,” Luke says. Michael hesitates, which tells Luke all he needs to know. “Great. See?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Michael says eventually. 

“Sounds like you did.” 

“I just- I’m just worried about you.” His tone is soft, but it still makes Luke’s blood boil. It’s just what Luke fucking _hates,_ the pity, the fear, the worry that’s never going to go away, not after Michael and Calum saw him the way he was. He _hates_ that it’s changed their opinion of him irrevocably, that they think he’s some precious, fragile little thing that’ll break the minute Ashton decides Luke’s not worth his time again. 

The thing is, though, he knows Michael means well. Michael’s not saying it because he wants to embarrass Luke, because he wants him to feel small and inferior and ashamed, but because he cares, because he genuinely wants Luke to be happy. And sure, he has a pretty shitty bedside manner when it comes to these things, but deep down Luke knows that’s the place he’s coming from. 

So Luke bites back the _I don’t need you to worry about me_ , the _worry about your fucking self_ and the _fuck you_ on the tip of his tongue, and swallows his pride. 

“I appreciate that,” he says, and the words burn hot as they leave his lips. “But I’m fine.” Michael gives him a sceptical look, but Calum’s the one to speak. 

“You know we’d never do anything to hurt you on purpose,” he says. Luke nods, a little tightly. 

“I know,” he says. He gets why they didn’t tell him, he does, but he also kind of fucking hates that they think he needs protecting. He’s not a kid - he doesn’t need to be coddled. “But I’m fine. Honestly. And I’m not running back to Ashton, whatever you think.” Michael flinches a little at that, but he seems to acknowledge that it’s fair enough. 

“So what did Ashton say?” Calum asks, changing the subject, ever the diplomat. Luke shrugs. 

“I hung up on him,” he says. 

“So you don’t know if he felt anything too?” Michael asks. Luke shakes his head. “Are you going to ask?” 

“No,” Luke says, because the thought of telling Ashton _hey, remember when you told me everything was going to be okay? Yeah, I had a soulmate experience, and that’s why I freaked out and hung up. How was it on your end?_ makes shame and embarrassment throb hotly under his skin. 

“Maybe you should,” Michael says. 

“What the fuck, Mike?” Luke says, a little annoyed. “Two seconds ago you were having a go at me for talking to him, now you want me to?” 

“I mean, it might be good to work out how your soulmate experience works,” Calum says. 

“Yeah, like, is it reciprocal?” Michael puts in. 

“What, so I just tell Ashton to ring me the next time he’s feeling like shit?” Luke says sarcastically. “You know as well as I do that he’s going to take that as ‘I’m here for you if you need me’.” 

“Well, no,” Calum says carefully. “What about the study? Have you heard back? You could offer to participate.” Luke presses his lips together. He still hasn’t told Michael and Calum about the offer the researchers made, and he feels guilt creep in around the edges of his remaining irritation. It’s a bit hypocritical of him to snap at them for keeping secrets from him when he’s doing exactly the same. Although, he supposes, he hasn’t kept this secret for _seven months_. 

“They, uh,” he says, averting his gaze. “They asked me to be part of the study.” 

“What?” Michael says, shocked. “When?” 

“Sunday.” Luke sees realisation dawn on Michael’s face, followed swiftly by indignance, and he hurries to add: “I know I should have told you, but I- honestly, I needed time to process it. And it’s only been two days.” _Not seven months_ , he doesn’t say, but they all hear anyway. 

“It’s okay,” Calum says. “We get it. _Don’t_ we, Michael?” He shoots Michael a glare, and Michael huffs. 

“Yes, we do,” he says sullenly. 

“What did they say?” Calum asks. 

“They just offered us a place on the study,” Luke says. 

“Ashton too?” 

“Well, it’d be a bit fucking hard to do a soulmate study with only one person, wouldn’t it?” Michael points out. 

“I don’t know, weren’t there a couple of individuals on our study?” Calum says, and right, yeah, Luke had completely forgotten they’d been part of a study early on. 

“You think I paid any attention to anyone else on that study?” Michael scoffs. Calum grins, and Michael rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was focused on trying to find out why I have your fucking _dog_ tattooed on my body.” 

“What did you have to do?” Luke asks. “In your study, I mean.” 

“Mostly just answer questions,” Calum says. “I mean, they were trying to figure out what the hell the tattoos were.” 

“Yeah, we had to answer some together and some separately,” Michael says. “And there was a blood test, remember?” Calum groans. 

“I try not to,” he says. 

“Are you going to do it?” Michael asks, and it takes Luke a moment before he realises it’s directed at him. 

“What? Oh,” he says. “Uh. I don't know?”

“Well, what did you say to them?” 

“I haven’t replied yet.” Calum nods, but he’s got a less-than-impressed look on his face. 

“You might as well ask what it would consist of,” he says. Luke shrugs uncomfortably. 

“I don’t want to feel like an experiment,” he says. 

“Even if it helps you work out what’s happening with your tattoo?” Michael says, raising his eyebrows. Luke frowns. Answering a few questions doesn’t sound so bad, if it helps him figure out why the tattoo keeps growing and how to stop it. 

“I don’t know,” he says again. “Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.” Michael and Calum just nod, and don’t say anything, even though it’s clear they both think he’s a fucking idiot for not immediately jumping at the chance to be studied by renowned researchers and possibly get some answers to the issue he’s been brooding about for weeks. Luke loves them for it. 

And so, because Luke’s trying to be a better person, he pushes down the irritation and spite still churning in his stomach, and leans back in his chair. 

“So,” he says. “You share dreams?” 

The surprised but brilliant smiles Michael and Calum send his way make it all worth it. 

\------- 

“Hey,” Calum says, when Luke walks into the office on Thursday. “Don’t forget we’re playing football on Saturday.” Luke groans, setting his bag down on his desk and sitting down in his chair, and Calum grins. “What, you really thought I’d forget?” 

“A man can fucking dream,” Luke mutters, turning his computer on. “Who’s playing?”

“Chris and Matt said they’d play for us,” Calum says. “And Tom said he’d get a team together.” Luke groans again. 

“Matt’s an extra fucking team member for Tom’s team,” he says. Calum laughs. 

“Yeah, but you’ve got me,” he says, eyes twinkling. Luke huffs, but he can’t really retaliate against that. Calum had literally been scouted by Real Madrid. 

“I still don’t know why you didn’t go,” Luke says for the millionth time, shaking his head as he types his password in. He says it every time they have this conversation, and he’s expecting Calum’s usual answer - _I didn’t want Mali to get my bedroom when I left_ \- but instead Calum shrugs. 

“I couldn’t leave Michael,” he says. Luke’s head snaps away from the computer screen to stare at him. 

“You turned down becoming a multimillionaire for Michael?” he says incredulously. “Mate, you’ve not told him that, have you?” Calum throws him a strange look. 

“Not yet,” he says. 

“Good,” Luke says fervently. “Don’t. He’ll fucking kill you if he finds out you turned down being rich for him.” Calum laughs. 

“I’m not materialistic,” he says, stretching in his chair. 

“Yeah, but Michael is.” Calum has to concede there. 

“True,” he says. “Good thing he’s the one earning a hundred thousand a year as a session musician.” Luke scowls at his desktop as he sees emails starting to pop in. Who the fuck is already sending emails at ten past nine? 

“Who the fuck sends emails this early?” he grumbles, clicking on the one that looks like it will be the least effort to deal with. 

“Shit, that reminds me,” Calum says, sounding excited all of a sudden. Luke half-debates telling him to get an MRI scan, because nobody sane gets that excited about receiving emails. “I got one at _two_.” 

“ _Two_ ?” Luke says, picking up a pencil and pulling a sheet of paper towards him to write down a note for Chris. “From _who_?” 

“Phil, if you can fucking believe it.” Luke stares at him in disbelief, pencil poised above the paper. 

“No,” he says, trying to imagine their uptight boss being awake in the middle of the night. “What the fuck?” 

“It gets better,” Calum says gleefully. “Guess what it was about?” 

“Firing me?” 

“I mean, good guess, but not this time,” Calum says. “It was an invite to join a Facebook group called ‘In Love With Colleague Support Group’.” Luke gapes at him. 

“Holy shit,” he says, and Calum nods delightedly. “Oh my God. Who is it?” 

“My money’s on Kiera,” Calum says. 

“I thought she just found her soulmate?” Luke says. 

“Maybe that’s why Phil needs support.” 

“No,” Luke says thoughtfully, tapping his chin with the pencil. “I’ve seen him hanging around Lisa at the photocopier.” 

“ _Lisa?_ Nah, no way,” Calum says confidently. 

“Why not?”

“He’s into blondes,” Calum says. 

“How the fuck would you know?” Luke asks. “I reckon it’s Lisa.” 

“Want to bet?” Luke only considers it for half a second before nodding. 

“Twenty dollars says it’s Lisa.” 

“Twenty on Kiera.” 

“Done.” Calum grins at him across the desk. 

“Hope you enjoy paying for mine and Michael’s condoms,” he says. 

Luke throws a pair of scissors at him.

\-------

The only reasons Luke can drag himself out of bed at nine-thirty on Saturday morning are because he knows he’s got a week off work for Christmas and New Year’s so he can sleep in the rest of the week, and because he knows Calum will come to his house and frogmarch him to the pitch if he doesn’t go of his own accord. 

Clifford gets excited when Luke starts putting his shoes on, thinking he’s going for a walk and running out to fetch his lead. Luke doesn’t have the heart to let him down, so he clips Clifford’s lead on and sends a quick text to Michael and Calum telling them he’s a pushover so Clifford’s coming with him. 

Matt, Chris, Michael and Calum are already there when Luke arrives at five to ten, along with four guys from the other team. Luke knows Tom, who works in accounting, and he thinks the ginger guy to his left might be called Simon, but he’s not confident enough to say hi when he gets to the pitch. 

“Alright?” Calum says, bending down to scratch behind Clifford’s ears. Clifford wags his tail happily, because the little traitor loves Calum more than anybody else. Calum could probably punt him across the pitch and Clifford would still come running back for a cuddle. 

“C’mon, little man,” Luke says, pulling Clifford away, much to his chagrin. “Let’s get you tied up.” Clifford lets out a huff but trots over to the fence and lies down, letting Luke tie his lead into the mesh behind him. 

“We’re just talking tactics,” Chris tells Luke when he jogs over to the group, chucking him a bib. Luke thinks a good tactic would be to have Matt sit the game out, but given that Matt’s his boss’s son, he thinks it probably wouldn’t be the best move. 

“I think we should play defensive,” Matt says as Luke pulls his bib on. “Keep Calum up front, but the three of us drop back. Chris, you want to be in goal?” Calum throws a look over at where Tom’s team are huddled together, deep in conversation. 

“Where’s their fifth?” he asks, and everybody shrugs. 

“Hey, Tom,” Michael shouts, and Tom turns around. “Where’s your fifth?” 

“He’s coming,” Tom calls. “Said he’d be here in a few minutes.” 

“We should get an automatic goal for their lateness,” Luke grumbles, because he didn’t drag himself out of bed this early just to have to stand around in the heat waiting for some random guy who can’t be bothered to make it on time. Just then, however, the gate swings open again. 

“Hey,” a voice says. “Sorry I’m late.” Luke throws a glance over his shoulder at the sound - and stops dead. 

Jesus _fucking_ Christ. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he says, before he can stop himself, and Chris, Matt Michael and Calum look up in surprise, following his gaze. Chris, Michael and Calum’s faces tighten in recognition, but Matt just looks bewildered. 

“You know him?” Matt asks. 

“That’s your ex, isn’t it?” Chris says, and yeah, of course. Luke had brought Ashton to a few work parties, and Chris has worked at the company since, like, the dawn of time. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, still glaring at Ashton, who’s made his way over to Tom’s team and is immersed in their conversation now. 

“I take it it didn’t end well?” Matt says. 

“You could say that,” Calum says. Ashton tips his head back in a laugh, and then locks eyes with Luke and freezes. 

“Yep,” Luke grits out, not looking away from Ashton. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ashton’s making his way over. 

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Ashton says, before he’s even got to the group. 

“I’d fucking hope not,” Luke says. 

“Hey, Michael, Calum,” Ashton says, a little uncomfortably. 

“Hi,” Calum says stiffly. Michael just glowers at Ashton. 

“Can we talk?” Ashton says, and Luke wants to say no, but he also doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Chris and Matt, so he nods and follows Ashton a few steps away from his team. He feels all four sets of their eyes on him, curious and wary, and turns his back to them so he doesn’t have to think about it. 

“This is a fucking joke,” Luke says flatly. “You don’t even _know_ Tom.” 

“No, but I know Ollie,” Ashton says, nodding at the ginger guy next to Tom. Not Simon, then. 

“Great,” Luke huffs, folding his arms. 

“Do you want me to go?” 

“Yes,” Luke says. Ashton hesitates for a moment, and then nods. 

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll tell Tom I can’t play anymore.” It strikes Luke, then, that if Ashton turns up, Luke has a mini-tantrum, and then Ashton leaves, Luke’s going to be blamed for ruining the match, and given that he works with at least four of these guys, that’s not going to win him any favours in the workplace. 

“Wait,” he says, as Ashton turns to leave. “Fuck. Just- stay, but keep out of my way.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“If you can stay out of my fucking way.” Ashton bites his lip, and nods. Luke turns to head back to his team, but Ashton catches his arm. He drops it immediately when Luke whips back around, like it’s burnt him, and Luke stares at him, yanking his arm away even though Ashton’s already let go. 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he says. 

“Did you feel it?” Ashton asks quietly, eyes serious. 

“Feel what?” 

“On the phone.” Luke swallows. 

“This isn’t the time,” he says. 

“After the match?” Luke glances over at Michael and Calum, who are staring at him, both frowning, concern etched all over their faces. 

“Lunch,” he offers. Ashton nods. Luke turns and jogs back to his team without another word. 

“Did you work it out?” Matt asks. 

“Yep,” Luke says, sending Michael and Calum a look that says _we need to talk_. They both nod. 

“Well, we’ve got extra motivation to fucking smash them, then, don’t we?” Chris says cheerfully, and Luke can’t help but laugh. 

\-------

At half time, when they’re two-nil up, Luke corners Michael and Calum. Chris and Matt pretend not to notice, engrossing themselves in a loud conversation about whether or not the offside rule should apply in five-a-side. 

“What’d he say?” Michael demands, as soon as they’re far enough away from everyone. 

“He wants to talk,” Luke says. “We’re going for lunch. He said he felt something on the phone call.” 

“What’d he feel?” Calum wants to know. 

“I don’t know,” Luke says. “That’s why I suggested lunch.” 

“Jesus,” Calum says. 

“Hang on,” Michael says. “Are you going to end up with a ball on your back now?” Luke stares at him for a moment, then tips his head back, groaning. He hadn’t even thought of that. 

“Fuck me,” he says, letting his eyes flutter shut. “I don’t want a fucking ball on my back.” 

“The moon already kind of looks like a ball,” Michael says helpfully. Luke opens his eyes again just to glare at him. 

“Maybe you’ll get something else,” Calum says. 

“I don’t even know that I’ll get _anything_ ,” Luke says defensively. 

“Denial’s not a good look for you,” Michael tells him, and Luke flips him off. 

“Score at least another three this half, Cal,” he says, when Tom shouts that half time is nearly over. Calum grins, pushing his sweaty hair back from his forehead, and nods. 

“Three? At least make it a fucking challenge, Luke,” he says. 

\-------

They win seven-one, in the end, and the one is an own goal by Matt. Luke can’t even bring himself to care, though, when Michael, Calum, Matt and Chris are whooping, high-fiving, and Tom’s shaking his head as they slope off the pitch.

“Calum should count as at least three players,” he says, swigging from his water bottle. 

“Yeah, but they also had Matt on their team,” the guy Luke now knows is Ollie says. Matt turns to him indignantly. 

“What the fuck, mate?” he says. Luke throws Michael and Calum a let’s-leave-before-this-gets-ugly look, and quickly unties Clifford from where he’s been patiently watching the game unfold. 

“You’re kind of shit, mate,” he hears Ollie saying, as the three of them quickly throw goodbyes over their shoulders and head out of the gate. 

“Jesus, why would you fucking say that?” Luke asks, as they start off through the park, Clifford trotting happily in front of them. 

“Masochism?” Calum offers. 

“Does he work at ours?” Luke asks. Calum shrugs. 

“Haven’t seen him if he does,” he says. “Fuck me, I’m so sweaty.” 

“Might do,” Michael says casually. Luke throws him a disgusted look. 

“Not in front of me, dickheads,” he says, and Michael grins. 

“Go on,” he says. “Indulge my exhibitionist kink.” Luke pulls a face. 

“I think I’d rather gouge out my eyeballs,” he tells Michael seriously.

“Would you really not fuck us?” Calum asks nonchalantly, like he’s asking about the weather. Luke chokes on his next breath. 

“Are y- _what_?” he asks. “Cal, are you insane? No offence, but I’d rather fuck Phil.”

“I mean, offence taken,” Michael says. 

“You don’t even know Phil,” Luke says.

“I know enough,” Michael says. “Calum’s hot, come on. Wouldn’t you fuck him?” 

“Are you, like, fucking swingers now, or something?” Luke demands. Calum laughs, eyes twinkling, and it finally dawns on Luke that they’re joking. 

“Only for you,” Calum says, and Luke scowls. 

“Fuck you,” he says, a touch sulkily. 

“We’re offering,” Michael says, but his eyes are gleaming too. 

“Stop making fun of me,” Luke huffs. Calum slings an arm around his shoulders. 

“Poor baby,” he says. “Don’t worry, we’d pity fuck you if you wanted us to.”

“I _don’t_ want you to,” Luke says pointedly, but he leans into Calum’s touch anyway. 

\-------

An hour later, Luke’s freshly showered and on his way to the address Ashton had texted him. It’s some café that he’s never heard of, and it makes him roll his eyes when he turns the corner and sees it, a little tucked-away place in a side road that looks just like the kind of place Ashton would want to have lunch at. Ashton’s already in there when Luke pushes the door open, sat at a table by the window with his phone in his hands, and he smiles hesitantly at Luke when he spots him making his way over. 

“Hi,” he says, when Luke throws himself down into the chair opposite Ashton with a little more drama than he perhaps needed to. “Thanks for coming.” Luke grunts noncommittally, and picks up a menu so he doesn’t have to look at Ashton. Ham and cheese toastie sounds good enough for lunch, he thinks. 

The waitress comes over after a few moments, because they’re literally one of the only three groups of people in the place, and they both order politely, smiling at her only for it to drop off their faces when they turn back to each other. 

“So,” Ashton says, breaking the silence. “Uh. I wanted to talk about the phone call.” Luke gazes out of the window, watching the passers-by, and nods. 

“What about it?” he says carefully, not wanting to give his own position away. He doesn’t know whether Ashton felt the same thing as him, after all. 

“You didn’t feel it?” 

“I didn’t say that.” Ashton pauses, and then sighs. 

“Okay,” he says. “I, uh. When I told you you were going to be okay, I felt...like, this overwhelming sense of protection?” Luke doesn’t tear his eyes away from the lady across the street trying to fit her plastic bag in the bin, just nods. That kind of makes sense. 

“I felt…” Luke searches for the right word, one that will express what he wants to say without giving Ashton anything, because give Ashton Irwin an inch and he’ll take a good twenty-seven miles. “Calm,” he settles on eventually. 

“Right,” Ashton says, after a pause. “So, what, we have a soulmate experience?” Luke shrugs. 

“Looks like it,” he says. Just then, the waitress brings their food over, and they both plaster on their plastic smiles and thank her. 

“Do you think it works the other way around?” Ashton asks, taking a bite out of his toastie. Luke shrugs.

“No idea,” he says, in a tone that he hopes conveys _and I have no interest in finding out_. Ashton seems to get it, because he doesn’t say anything else until they’ve both finished their first slice. 

“Have you thought any more about the study?” he asks, wiping his hands on a napkin. 

“Not really,” Luke says. “I was thinking of emailing them to ask what it would consist of.” 

“I already did,” Ashton says. Luke blinks at him, not entirely sure how he should feel about that. 

“And?” Ashton looks a little uncomfortable. 

“I, uh,” he says, picking his phone off the table. “I think it’s better if you read it yourself.” He passes his phone over to Luke, who wipes his own fingers and begins to read.  
  
 **From:** <c.r.johnson@ucl.ac.uk>  
 **To:** <ashtonfletcherirwin@gmail.com>  
 **Cc:** <j.m.newbury@ucl.ac.uk> **_  
_** **RE: RE:** Soulmate study

_Dear Mr Irwin,_

_Thank you for your swift follow up email._

_The details of the study are as follows:_

  * _4 weeks following participants’ movements_


  * _One group living apart, one group living together_


  * _Questionnaires 3x per week (individual and partner)_


  * _Blood samples once daily (other biological samples to be confirmed)_


  * _Variety of physical tests (to be confirmed, non-invasive)_
  * _Psychological assessment once weekly_



_As you can see from the above, your soulmate and yourself would have to come to London to partake in this study. All expenses would be reimbursed by the University._

_Kind regards,  
_ _Colin Johnson_

Luke hands the phone back to Ashton with an unreadable expression. 

“We’d have to go to _London_?” he says. “For _four weeks_?” 

“Yeah,” Ashton says. “It’s not ideal.” 

“It’s far from not fucking ideal,” Luke says. “I have a job here. I’ve got a dog. I can’t just leave for four weeks.” 

“So you want to do it?” Luke hesitates.

“I want to know how to stop it growing,” he says. “And I want to know how to control it.” 

“Control it?” 

“Well, we’re not going to be together, are we?” Luke says, ignoring the way Ashton flinches at his words. “So we have to find a way of getting it under control for the next sixty years.” 

“So you want to go to London?” 

“I can’t just up and leave, Ashton,” Luke says. 

“Bring Clifford with you,” Ashton suggests. “I’m sure work will give you time off for this.” 

“So _you_ want to do it?” Luke says. Ashton shrugs. 

“Yeah,” he says honestly. “But I won’t if you don’t want to.” 

“Well, you can’t, really, can you?” Luke points out. “Not without me.” Ashton shrugs again, but says nothing. Luke sighs heavily, leaning back in his chair and squeezing his eyes shut. 

This is a lot. He wants to figure out what’s going on with their tattoos, how to stop them growing, ideally if there’s any way to, like, sever the soulmate tie between him and Ashton, and these researchers seem like the only ones looking into soulmates that are choosing to stay apart. They seem to be his best chance at understanding what’s going on, and at hopefully finding a way to stop it happening. 

Then again, they’re in _London_. Thousands and thousands of miles away, away from Calum and Michael and everyone who makes him feel safe, away from Clifford, away from his job, and he’d be jet-lagged and stuck in a drab, cold, wet foreign country with Ashton as the only person he knows for four weeks. 

“Let me think about it,” he says eventually. 

“Okay,” Ashton says, sounding relieved, and for the first time Luke realises that it’s not just him that wants answers to this, who wants it to stop. Ashton’s body is also at risk of turning into a monument to Luke just as much as Luke’s is at risk of turning into a shrine to Ashton. 

“Want to place bets on what football tattoos we’re going to get?” Ashton says after a minute, and Luke snorts despite himself. 

“As long as I’m not the one who ends up with the ball,” he says. 

“Man, I’d rather have the ball than the goal,” Ashton says. Luke’s eyes widen. He hadn’t even thought of that. 

“Yeah, second thoughts, I’ll take the fucking ball,” he says, and Ashton laughs. It makes something tighten deep in the pits of Luke’s stomach that makes him uncomfortable, but not because it’s unpleasant. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but his body tells him he likes it. 

Whatever, he thinks, pulling out his wallet as the waitress comes over. It’s probably just another bullshit soulmate thing. 

\-------

Luke wakes up to two texts from Ashton.

 **_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
__Fuck’s sake_

 **_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
__I got the ball_

Luke grins, happy that he’s not the one who ended up with the ball, and pads to the bathroom to check his tattoo in the mirror. Clifford’s hot on his heels, whining for his breakfast. 

_8._ Great. As if he needed more numbers on it. 

**_Me_ ** _  
__I got an 8_

Ashton’s reply is instantaneous. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** _  
__My bib number_

Something flares in Luke’s stomach at the words, and he presses it down before he has time to process what it is. 

“I’m _coming_ , little man,” he says, rolling his eyes, when Clifford’s whines start getting louder, slipping his shirt back on and pushing the tattoo from his mind.

\-------

“So,” Michael says when Luke finishes catching him up on yesterday’s events, voice crackling over the shitty internet connection and barely audible over Luke’s extractor fan. “What did he say?” 

“He wants to do the study,” Luke says, stirring the pasta in the pot. 

“Well, of course he does,” Michael says. “But _London_?” 

“I know,” Luke says, biting his lip. “It’s so fucking far.” 

“And it’s so long,” Michael says. “I don’t know if I want you to be on your own with Ashton for four weeks.” 

“You and me both, mate,” Luke says, sprinkling some random herbs in the sauce. Fuck it, herbs can never be wrong, right? 

“So, what, are you going to say no?” 

“I don’t know,” Luke moans. “I want to fucking find out how to stop it, but I don’t want to leave for four fucking weeks.” 

“Did you get anything new?” Michael asks. Luke nods. 

“His bib number,” he says. “He got the ball.” Michael makes a pleased noise. 

“Good,” he says, sounding satisfied. “Fuck him.” Luke grins, adding some more salt to the sauce. 

“Hey, are you going home for Christmas?” Michael asks suddenly. 

“I don’t think so,” Luke says. “I think Mum and Dad are skiing. Why?” 

“Cal and I are spending it together,” Michael says, sounding a little nervous and a lot excited about it. “You should come.” Luke hesitates. 

“Nah, Mikey,” he says eventually, even though he would love nothing more than to spend Christmas with his two best friends. “This is your first Christmas together. You should spend it alone.” 

“No, Luke, we want you there,” Michael presses. “All three of us. We’re not leaving you out just because we’re soulmates now.” 

“Talk to Cal about it first,” Luke says after a moment. “Make sure he’s okay with it first. I don’t want to impose.” Michael rolls his eyes. 

“What, you think I was the one who wanted you to come round?” he says, but he’s grinning. “Cal’s desperate for you to come.” Luke’s heart softens, just a little, and he grins at his pasta. 

“If you’re sure,” he says. 

“Jesus, yes, we’re fucking sure,” Michael says, still grinning. “See you Wednesday, then?” 

“See you Wednesday,” Luke confirms. 

“We’re going to fuck, though,” Michael tells him, and Luke sighs heavily. It’s Christmas. Luke can’t really begrudge them that. 

“I’ll listen and wank,” Luke says. 

“You’re always welcome to join,” Michael says, and Luke rolls his eyes, aiming his middle finger at the camera. Michael laughs, tinny and staticky. 

“Love you,” he says. “Enjoy your dinner.” 

“Love you too,” Luke says. “Enjoy Calum.” 

“Always do,” Michael says, and Luke can almost hear his eyes glinting. It makes him shake his head, but it also makes his heart hurt a little bit. 

Jesus, he’s fucking lonely. 

\-------

Luke’s usually one to agonise. 

He usually sits on decisions for days, thinks about them for weeks, thinks and overthinks and chops and changes and flips coins and then flips them again. He makes detailed pros and cons lists, he asks every single person he’s ever met what they would do in his situation, he refuses to think about it for days or weeks until it bursts into the forefront of his mind again. He usually needs at least three weeks of warning before he has to make a decision, and even then he’s hard-pressed to do it. 

So when he finds himself sitting in bed at half-past two in the morning, reading and re-reading the email the researchers had sent to him, and finds nothing but a comfortable weight in his stomach telling him _go, go to London_ , he’s not really sure what to make of it. 

His fingers, though, seem to have a mind of their own, flying across his keyboard before his mind has time to catch up and tell him it’s a bad idea. 

**_Me_ ** _  
__I’ll do it_

Ashton’s reply comes within seconds. 

**_Ashton Irwin_ ** **  
**_Thank you._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i even need to say that i just finished another exam and then wrote another 6k of this fic. we all know how i function at this point and that this fic is just a deadline season coping mechanism for me anyway due to the aforementioned exam i have had 2 hours sleep and am fairly delirious right now so hopefully whatever my addled mind has concocted isn't too insane 
> 
> BIG fucking shoutout to both ainslee for being this fic's #1 hypeman and reading part of this to reassure me that it's not the worst thing anyone has ever done to the english language and an equally big shoutout to taron egerton for recording the rocketman soundtrack and giving me his dulcet tones to write this fic to (top picks: tiny dancer, honky cat, rocketman, bennie, yellow brick road) 
> 
> i am a little nervous about this chapter because it's not very action-packed at all but i feel like it's a part of it that needed to be told and not glossed over for the sake of keeping the action going obviously the next chapter is going to include excitement like their first day in london where they don't have to go to the researchers yet and i have another exam on friday so let's be honest with ourselves stay tuned for me to write another chapter 
> 
> i hope you are all staying safe and sane during quarantine if you've read all of this i wonder if anyone actually reads my authors notes i ramble so much in them what an insight into my personality this is

Luke turns up at Calum’s apartment at eleven a.m. on Christmas Day, Clifford and a pile of presents in tow. He can barely get his finger onto the doorbell, shifting the jumper he’d got Calum to his other arm to free up a hand and dropping the cologne he’d bought Michael onto the floor in the process. He swears as it hits the ground with a bang, and leans down, forgetting the other presents he’s carefully balanced in his arms which immediately go tumbling down too. 

“Oh, fuck’s sake,” Luke mutters, and drops to his knees, gathering all the parcels in his arms as Clifford watches with mild interest. He’s just picking up the cologne when the door opens, and he looks up to be met with Calum’s amused expression. 

“You know,” Calum says conversationally, “most people just use the doorbell.” 

“Fuck you,” Luke scowls, getting to his feet and almost dropping the cologne again. Clifford’s tugging on his lead, panting and wagging his tail, putting on a show for Calum, and it’s not helping the whole precariously-balanced-presents situation. “Can I come in?” Calum grins, and steps aside, gesturing grandly for Luke to enter his little apartment. Luke considers flipping him off as he passes, but a warning wobble from the gift card balanced on top of the jumper makes him change his mind, and he just heads straight for the living room and dumps the presents down on the sofa before they can fall to the floor again. 

“Merry Christmas to you too,” Michael says from a chair at the table, eyeing first the badly-wrapped gifts and then Luke. Luke sighs, kicking his shoes off and throwing them in the general direction of the hallway, and unclips Clifford from his lead. Clifford immediately goes bounding off in search of Duke, and Luke hears a faint _oh, c’mon, Cliff, he’s sleeping, don’t disturb the old man_ from Calum in the hallway that Calum knows full well Clifford’s going to ignore. 

“Would it kill you to take the two steps back to the hallway to put your fucking shoes away?” Calum says, appearing in the door to the living room with one of Luke’s shoes in his hand. Luke shrugs, haphazardly shoving the presents under the little tree Calum’s set up in the corner. 

“Maybe,” he says, and Calum shakes his head, but puts Luke’s shoes away for him before heading into the living room and throwing himself down on the sofa next to Luke and flashing them both a bright grin. 

“Merry Christmas,” he says, and he sounds far too happy for someone who’s sitting in an apartment without aircon in thirty-five degree heat. Michael rolls his eyes, but there’s a small smile playing at his lips, and Calum spots it, holding his arms open and making grabby hands for Michael to come and sit on his lap. 

“Absolutely not,” Michael says, pointing at Calum. “It’s way too fucking hot for that.” Calum pouts a little, but lets his arms drop to his side again. 

“Should we do presents now, or after lunch?” Luke asks. 

“Now,” Michael says, eyes back on the gifts Luke had brought with him, because he’s an impatient bastard. Calum rolls his eyes as he gets to his feet, shooting Luke a look. 

“Why’d you even bother asking?” he says, a touch exasperated, and Luke grins. 

“Do mine first,” Michael demands. 

“Which ones are yours?” Calum asks. 

“Are you kidding me?” Luke says, a little offended that Calum can’t tell the difference between his and Michael’s wrapping. Luke might be bad, but he’s not _that_ bad. “The ones wrapped in _duct tape._ ” Calum reaches for a squishy-looking one, looks at it for a moment and then tosses it at Luke, who catches it deftly. 

“You got scissors?” he asks, and Calum throws Michael a beseeching look. Michael sighs heavily, like getting scissors for the duct tape _he’d_ chosen to wrap his presents with is a huge ordeal, but gets to his feet and disappears into the kitchen. He reappears a few moments later with a meat cleaver, and Luke stares at Calum in disbelief. 

“Why the fuck do you own a meat cleaver?” he asks, and Calum shrugs. 

“To cleave meat,” he says, reaching for the knife from Michael and holding it out for Luke. 

“Are you insane?” Luke says, not sure whether he’s directing the question at Michael or Calum. “How the fuck am I going to open a present with a meat cleaver?” Michael shrugs, throwing himself back in his chair. 

“Not my problem,” he says. “I don’t have to open any presents wrapped with duct tape.” Luke scowls but reaches hesitantly for the meat cleaver, casting a doubtful glance down at the gift in his lap. 

“Try sliding it in sideways,” Calum suggests helpfully. 

“Or lift the wrapping paper up and cut into it,” Michael offers. 

“You guys are fucking stupid,” Luke tells them, placing the cleaver on its side and carefully applying a little pressure to create a small tear, then setting the knife aside and using his hands to rip the rest of the wrapping paper off. 

“Or do it like that,” Michael mutters, like Luke’s just ruined his fun somehow. Luke sends him a brief look of disapproval, shaking out the present Michael’s bought him. 

It’s a fluffy blanket with Clifford’s little face about a hundred times the size of life printed on it, gazing happily up at Luke, tongue out. It’s the dumbest thing Michael’s ever bought Luke, and Luke fucking loves it. 

“I love it,” he tells Michael, grinning as he flips the blanket the other way around to inspect the back. 

“‘Course you do,” Michael says, but he’s smiling too. 

“I’ll take it with me on the flight,” Luke says thoughtlessly, carefully folding the blanket back up. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Calum and Michael exchange an alarmed look, and realises with a sickening lurch of his stomach that shit, he hasn’t actually told them he’d agreed to go to London yet. He’d wanted to save it until after Christmas, not wanting to taint their first Christmas together with the inevitable argument that’ll come with both Michael and Luke stubbornly standing their ground and Calum trying to please both of them. 

“You’re going, then?” Michael asks bluntly, and Calum sighs, clearly having hoped for something a little more diplomatic. Luke swallows. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Okay,” Calum says, before Michael has a chance to jump in and say whatever thoughts are putting that dark expression on his face. 

“Look,” Luke begins, stomach churning uncomfortably, but Calum cuts him off. 

“No,” he says firmly, and Luke’s not sure whether it’s directed at him or Michael. “We might not agree with your decision, but we’re going to support you. _Aren’t we_ , Michael?” He punctuates it with a glare in Michael’s direction, and Michael holds his gaze for a moment, eyes furious, before he nods tightly. Calum, apparently satisfied with that response, turns back to Luke. 

“So, when do you go?” he asks, and Luke shrugs. 

“I don’t know,” he says, because he’d kind of just thought Ashton would email Mr Johnson back and say they were both participating. “I’m assuming Ashton’ll tell me.” 

“Have you spoken to Phil about it?” 

“Not yet,” Luke says, because it’s the Christmas holidays, and he’s not even thought about how to phrase it. _Can I work remotely for four weeks while I participate in a soulmate study in the UK because my soulmate’s my ex and my tattoo keeps growing and I need to find a way to stop it_ sounds a little desperate. 

“Have you told your parents?” Michael asks knowingly, and a lick of embarrassment at how badly Luke’s thought this all up flares up in him, quickly turning to annoyance.

“Jesus, what’s with the fucking Inquisition?” he asks, a little irritably. Calum holds his hands up in defence. 

“We’re just wondering,” he says. 

“Well, don’t,” Luke says moodily, shoving the blanket down on the sofa next to him with a little more force than strictly necessary. Michael rolls his eyes. 

“No need to bite our fucking heads off,” he says, and Luke sighs, closing his eyes briefly. This is _exactly_ what he’d wanted to avoid; he’d wanted his first Christmas with Michael and Calum to be a good one, to not cast a shadow on Calum and Michael’s first Christmas together. That thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that Luke tries hard not to identify as guilt, and he swallows it and his pride down. 

“Look, I’m sorry,” Luke says. “I- I was going to tell you. After. I didn’t want-” he cuts himself off, gesturing at nothing, and hoping Michael and Calum get it. 

“Didn’t want this to happen?” Michael says wryly, and Calum huffs out a laugh. Luke has to smile at that too, looking down at the floor a little sheepishly. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I want this Christmas to be a good one for you.” He hopes they get what he means with that too, that he won’t have to say the words _I don’t want to ruin your first Christmas like I’ve ruined so many other parts of the beginning of your relationship,_ because he doesn’t know whether they’ll actually make it across his lips. 

“Oh, Luke,” Calum says softly, eyes wide and kind. “Of course it’ll be a good one. We’re spending it with you.” 

“Plus, what’s Christmas without a family argument?” Michael points out, and Calum and Luke both laugh, and Luke feels the guilt swirl in his stomach with the pure fucking _love_ he has for Michael and Calum. 

“You think _that’s_ going to be the argument of the day?” Calum says, eyes glinting as he grins at Michael. “Wait ‘til Luke opens the present we got him.” Michael’s grin immediately turns wicked, and he casts a look of delight in Luke’s direction, which Luke does not trust one bit. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, eyes locked with Luke, who frowns. 

“What did you arseholes get me?” he asks, and both of them just laugh, a touch hysterical. “What the _fuck_ did you get?” he demands again, fighting back a grin as he watches Michael and Calum laugh and the love in his stomach shoots into his veins, warming up every fibre of his being. 

\-------

(“You signed me up to receive _daily BDSM tips?_ ” Luke asks in horror, staring at the piece of paper he’s just pulled out of the envelope. “That I _can’t cancel?_ ” Michael and Calum are falling about themselves laughing, can’t get more than two fucking words out before dissolving into giggles again. 

“You know what the best part of it is?” Calum gasps, wiping at his eyes. 

“We signed Ashton up too,” Michael splutters.) 

\-------

When Luke goes back to work a week and a half later, he’s got a whole speech prepared for Phil. He rehearses it on the train on the way to work, double- and triple-checking the email Ashton had forwarded him on Thursday to make sure he’s got his dates right, whispering it under his breath and getting strange looks from the guy sitting opposite him, but it’s all in vain. 

“A soulmate study?” Phil says, a calculating look in his eyes, like he knows something that Luke doesn’t know he knows. 

“Yes,” Luke says, mentally skipping to the next part of his speech. “It’d be for four weeks, but I’d be able to work remotely, and-” 

“Yes,” Phil says. 

“-I could probably come back early if I were neede- huh?” Luke cuts himself off mid-recital, when his mind finally catches up with his ears. “Sorry?” 

“Give me the dates and I’ll approve it,” Phil says, eyes already back on the notepad in front of him. 

“Oh,” Luke says, a little nonplussed. “Okay. Thank you.” He stands there for a moment, staring at the top of Phil’s head, bewildered, until Phil looks up again. 

“Was there something else?” he says pointedly, and Luke shakes his head, makes his excuses, and leaves. Strange, he thinks, but Calum doesn’t seem to think anything of it when Luke relays the story to him ten minutes later. 

The researchers want to start as soon as possible (‘ideally the fifteenth’, the email says, because they can somehow fast-track their visas), and Luke, Calum and Michael spend an age researching the cheapest flights from Sydney to London before Luke pulls up the original email stating that all expenses would be reimbursed by the university sponsoring the study and books himself a flight that stops over in Singapore for just under an hour, wanting to get the twenty-two hour long trip over as fast as possible. 

His mum gives him a knowing smile when he rings her and explains the situation, explains that he’ll be gone for four weeks, and it makes something like the teenage annoyance Luke had felt whenever she’d catch him staring at a boy burn hot in his stomach. He snaps at her that it’s only because he wants to get rid of the tattoo, and then immediately feels guilty when the smile slides off her face. He sighs, and tells her he’s sorry, and she smiles sadly and says she knows, and Luke knows the sad smile isn’t because he snapped at her and has to swallow back the annoyance rising like bile in his throat again. He fucking hates that everyone thinks they know how he feels about Ashton better than he does. 

Calum and Michael tell him repeatedly they think it’s a bad idea as they help him pack, but Calum secretly gets Clifford the required shots and certification from the vet to allow him to travel to the UK, and Michael pays Luke’s next month of bills for him. Luke tries not to think about it too much, because even though it’s only four weeks, it’s the longest they’ve ever been apart, and Luke catches both of them choking on their words and turning away quickly when the conversation centres on the length of time Luke’s going to be away for too long. Instead, they bitch and bicker about what clothes Luke should pack, whether or not Michael can be bothered to check in on Luke’s houseplants every few days, whether Luke should take a guitar with him, and if packing books is really necessary. It’s the only way the three of them can cope with the sense of loss that’s blooming in all of them, blossoming in their lungs and choking them from the inside out.

He tells Ashton he’ll be there on the fourteenth, and just gets an _Okay_ in response. They don’t speak apart from that, and Luke’s too preoccupied with packing and sorting his affairs at home to spare any thoughts for Ashton. 

His parents drop by with a few leaving gifts, and for his mum to fuss over how badly he’s packed and re-pack everything at least twice, and for his dad to pat him on the back and try to have a serious talk about feelings and Ashton that Luke really, _really_ isn’t ready to have. He’s saved by Jack and Ben appearing, handing him a bottle of champagne that he’s not sure he can take into the UK anyway, loudly making bets about whether or not Luke’s going to get laid in London in order to take their mum’s attention away from Luke, scolding the two of them for being so lewd, so Luke gets a moment to breathe. They stay for dinner, and it’s the first time the five of them have been together in months, and Luke loves it, loves the way they all fuss over him in their own ways, feels a pang of love and gratefulness in his heart that he’s got a family like this. 

On the thirteenth, Michael drives Luke to the airport. Calum spends the entire car journey twisted around in the passenger seat, telling Luke all the work he’s shafted onto Chris and Tom so Luke’ll have less to do when he’s in England, reminding him for the seven millionth time that because of the time difference, the deadlines that Luke gets sent will actually be a day earlier for him, and Luke rolls his eyes to avoid the anxiety growing in his stomach with every mile they get close to the airport and tells Calum yes, he _knows_ , he’s worked remotely before, it’s not going to be any different because he’s in London. 

The three of them manage to hold it together until Luke’s checked his bags and Clifford in, Calum kissing Clifford a tearful goodbye, Michael instructing Luke far too seriously to bring his son back in one piece. It’s when Luke’s got to head to security that they all break down in tears. 

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Luke sobs, arms around both of them, not even caring that they’re getting strange looks from everyone around him. It’s suddenly hitting him, the enormity of what he’s doing - four weeks, thousands and thousands of miles and hours and hours of timezones away from his entire support system, with nobody he knows except the man he’d hoped never to see again in his life. 

“I’m going to miss you more,” Calum says, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. 

“I’m going to miss you most,” Michael says, voice wobbly in a way that Luke hasn’t heard since the time in Year Ten he’d thought Calum was dating Stephanie Newham. 

“We’ll call you every day,” Calum promises. “We’ll figure out the timezones.” 

“Don’t forget about me,” Luke says, aiming for light-hearted, but his voice wavers and he’s all choked up, and Michael and Calum both tighten their grip on him. 

“Never,” Michael says fiercely. 

“You’re our best friend, Luke,” Calum says, equally fierce. “You’re part of us.” Luke just chokes back another sob at that, pulls them in tighter, and kisses both of them on the cheek. 

“I love you,” he says, head starting to throb from crying already. 

“I love you too,” both Calum and Michael echo. 

When they finally disentangle themselves, all wet sleeves and blotchy faces, Luke feels anxious and sick, and Calum presses one final kiss to Luke’s forehead, and Michael one to his temple. 

“Go,” Calum says, giving him a watery smile. 

“I love you,” Luke says again, a little desperately. 

“We love _you_ ,” Michael says earnestly, scrubbing at his eyes. “Now get on that flight.” Luke nods, and slings his carry-on bag over his shoulder. 

“Text us as soon as you land,” Calum calls, as Luke takes his first steps towards security. He thinks he kind of understands what Neil Armstrong must have felt taking his first steps on the moon now.

“I will,” Luke promises. 

“And remember to call Ashton a bastard from me,” Michael shouts, and Luke grins, trying to stop the stinging feeling in his nose and the lump in his throat telling him he’s going to cry again. 

“I will,” Luke says again, pulling his boarding pass out to scan in the barrier. The barrier slides open, and Luke hesitates, throwing one last glance at his two best friends, his anchors, his everything. 

He steps through the barrier, and Calum and Michael both grin at him, fresh tears streaming down both of their faces, and it’s all Luke can do to turn away from them and step into the queue for security. 

\-------

Luke’s flight starts boarding at half-past five, and he’s one of the first groups called after business class have finished boarding, meaning he’s one of the first on the plane. The plane’s set up in rows of three, and Luke’s got the middle seat on the right hand side, so he shuffles in, takes the things he wants for the flight out of his bag and shoves it inelegantly in the overhead locker. He doesn’t bother putting his seatbelt on, since he assumes someone’s going to have the window seat, just texts Michael and Calum that he’s on the first flight and switches to scrolling through Twitter as the plane slowly fills up. 

A friendly looking lady smiles at him as she sits down to his left, busying herself with getting her things out of her bag and arranging her pillow, and Luke returns her smile politely. The flight’s getting fuller and fuller, and Luke thinks for a brief few minutes that maybe, just maybe, he can snag the window seat for himself, before the lady’s getting up to let someone in and Luke automatically does the same, only to be confronted with-

“Ashton?” 

“Luke?” 

“You-”

“I didn’t know-”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Luke’s confusion burns into anger, but he steps out of the row to let Ashton in, not wanting to cause a scene in front of the woman, who’s looking a little bemused. Ashton shuffles past them, too close in the confines of the plane, and the scent of pine and oak and spice hits Luke as Ashton pushes past, making him feel dizzy and giddy and so fucking _angry._

“What the fuck?” Luke hisses, when Ashton’s flopped down in the window seat and Luke’s back in his seat. Ashton just gives him a tired look. 

“Why the fuck are you surprised, Luke?” he says, a little wearily. “We’re heading to the same place on the same day. There are only so many flights.” Luke knows he’s right, hates that he’s right, and doesn’t want to be wrong. 

“Yeah, but why are you _here?_ ” he demands, gesturing at the seat. Ashton’s far too close for comfort, arm on the armrest he’s going to be sharing with Luke for the next _eight hours,_ and the scent of pine and oak and spice is still clouding Luke’s mind. 

“Jesus, Luke, I’m not stalking you,” Ashton says, like he knows what Luke’s thinking, rolling his eyes. “This is just my assigned seat.” 

“Right,” Luke says sarcastically, folding his arms. “So this is just a massive coincidence.” Ashton gives him a look. 

“I don’t think anything since getting the tattoos has been a coincidence,” he says, a little too knowingly. Luke hates it. 

“Well, at least we’re going to find a way to stop it,” he bites out, and then turns away from Ashton pointedly. Ashton sighs, but doesn’t answer, instead fumbling with a book he’s got out of his bag as the safety briefing begins. 

\-------

Luke doesn’t even realise he fell asleep after dinner until the slow drone of the pilot’s voice rouses him gently. He lets the sound wash over him, not opening his eyes in case he wakes up too much and can’t fall back asleep, instead nuzzling further into the warm, firm pillow on his right. 

And, fuck, aeroplane pillows are never _firm._

Luke jolts upright, eyes flying open so fast he thinks he might have burst a capillary or something, ear and cheek hot from where they’ve been resting on Ashton’s shoulder. 

_On Ashton’s shoulder._

Ashton, thank the fucking Lord, also seems to be asleep, head resting on his hand, and Luke turns away before he can think about how peaceful Ashton looks, face tranquil and relaxed in sleep. His heart is beating wildly - shit, did he fall asleep on Ashton before Ashton had fallen asleep? Does Ashton know? Why does he feel so fucking well-rested for two hours’ sleep on a _plane?_ \- and he focuses to the dull thrum of the engines to try and calm his breathing down. Ashton stirs to his right, making him jump a foot in the air, but he doesn’t open his eyes, and his breathing remains even. 

Luke stares steadfastly and unblinkingly ahead of him, balling his fists, and doesn’t sleep for the rest of the flight. 

\------- 

Everybody stumbles off the flight in Singapore sleepily, and Luke and Ashton follow the signs for connections in silence. The bright lights of Changi airport make his head and eyes hurt, and Luke feels like he’s in a dream, in a deserted airport at what would be three in the morning back home with Ashton fucking Irwin, heading to London on his own for four weeks. It makes him feel delirious somehow, like this whole thing is a fever dream. 

Luke and Ashton aren’t sat together on the second leg of the flight, for which Luke thanks whatever deities he can think of in his semi-conscious state. This flight is much quieter, much smaller, people dotted around the rows of three rather than clogging them all up. Ashton’s two rows in front of Luke, which is still too close for comfort, but it’s far enough away that Luke can give into his exhaustion and fall asleep against the window, cold and hard and cricking his neck. He sleeps uneasily, drifting in and out of consciousness with every chime of the seatbelt lights, every slam of the toilet door, every update from the cockpit. By the time that the flight attendant wakes him up for breakfast six hours later, Luke feels like he’s slept about twenty minutes in total. 

He eats his breakfast, reads some reports he’d downloaded on his laptop to work on, makes notes on them, eats the next meal they offer, tries to sleep a little more because the darkness just doesn’t seem to be fucking lifting even though he’s been on this flight for nearly ten hours, tries to read some more of the reports but his eyes feel gritty and dry, and eventually settles into listening to some music with his eyes shut. He gets through three whole albums when he realises that light is stealing over his eyes, and cracks them open to see the sun rising over the horizon. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our descent into London Heathrow,” the pilot announces, and Luke thinks thank fuck, cracks his neck, and starts packing his things together. He takes one last trip to the toilet, because he has no idea how long it is from Heathrow to wherever the university is putting them up, and then watches the plane get lower and lower, disappearing into the clouds and reappearing in the dull grey sky over London. 

London’s a huge, sprawling mess of buildings, a thick band of blue winding its way through the concrete and brick and glass, and it looks so foreign and so little like home that it makes Luke feel a little sick. He tries to pick out individual buildings he’s seen in photos, but they’re moving too fast and there are too many buildings that look the same. Luke’s so preoccupied with trying to find Buckingham Palace that he barely even realises how close they’re getting until he sees the runway looming underneath them, and braces himself as the wheels hit the ground. 

The pilot’s making some kind of announcement as they taxi to the bay but nobody cares, everybody eager to get off the plane they’ve spent the past thirteen fucking hours on, a flurry of movement beginning before the plane has even slowed to a full stop. Luke’s among them, jumping up before the seatbelt sign switches off to grab his bag out of the overhead locker and stuff the things he’d taken out for the flight back in. He stretches, cracking his back with a yawn, and looks to his left to see Ashton staring directly at him. Ashton looks away immediately, something unreadable in his expression, and Luke suddenly feels exposed, vulnerable, for letting Ashton see him with his guard down. 

They file off the plane and into the cold winter air, Luke about four people down from Ashton, and queue at passport control. More and more flights start to pile in behind them, and Luke stares at the EU arrivals swanning through the electronic passport gates enviously as his queue shuffles forward a centimetre at a time. 

Finally, though, he’s through passport control, heading for baggage reclaim, so focused on trying to remember that his bags are coming through on conveyor belt seven that he doesn’t even notice Ashton lingering on the other side of passport control. 

“Hey,” he says, falling into step with Luke and catching him totally off-guard, and Luke stares at him in surprise. 

“What?” 

“Are you taking the tube?” Luke frowns. He’d intended to, but that was _before_ getting on a twenty-two hour flight across God knows how many timezones. 

“I was going to,” he says. 

“Want to split a cab?” Luke hesitates. On the one hand, he’s not really sure whether he wants to share a cab with Ashton, stuck in close quarters for who knows how long of a drive. On the other hand, yes, he would very much like to get in a cab and just arrive at his destination without having to drag his suitcases everywhere with him, and he’s going to spend the next four weeks stuck with Ashton anyway, so he might as well get used to it. 

“Fine,” he says, sighing, and Ashton actually smiles, like he hadn’t been expecting Luke to agree to it. Luke feels a weird flicker of something he can’t quite identify in his gut, but attributes it to his absolute exhaustion, quickening his pace to take his mind off it.

Their luggage is already on the conveyor belt by the time they get there, and Ashton hauls Luke’s suitcases off the conveyor belt for him, much to his annoyance. 

“I have hands, you know,” he tells Ashton, who flashes him a grin. 

“You won’t lift anything heavier than a fucking feather, Luke,” he says, and Luke scowls, because it’s true, and he hates that Ashton knows that about him. 

“Yeah, well,” he says moodily. “First time for everything.” Ashton huffs out a laugh at that, tired eyes twinkling with something like amusement, and he heads off towards the Nothing To Declare gate. Luke has to take a detour to pick up Clifford, which takes a ridiculously long time because they need to check both his _and_ Clifford’s documentation, and then want to scan his microchip like, four times, but eventually he’s released, yapping at Luke from inside his travel cage, and Luke heads out in the direction Ashton had taken to find him leaning against the wall, waiting for him. It sends a jolt of something unpleasant shooting through his veins, gives him awful déjà-vu of times he’d gone to visit Ashton wherever he’d been recording and Ashton had waited for him in much the same way, but he’s too tired to feel anything more than the ghost of an emotion, so he forces it away and heads for the taxis. 

The taxi rank is absolutely full when they get there, and Ashton points to the polite queue that’s formed - how fucking British, Luke thinks, stationing himself behind the guy in a sharp-looking suit that’s barking angry instructions about filing the tax returns _right now_ down his phone. Ashton throws the guy a look, then Luke, rolling his eyes, and Luke has to stifle a smile and then the strange revulsion that rises in his throat at sharing an unspoken moment like that with Ashton. 

Luckily, his mind is taken off it by them moving up the queue to the next cab. The driver gets out, opens the boot for them to put their bags in, asks them where they want to go. Ashton reels off an address as he’s hauling his bags in, postcode and all, and the cab driver gives him a funny look but nods, getting back in the driver’s seat. 

Luke and Ashton clamber into the back of the taxi, which looks a lot more spacious from the outside than it is on the inside, and sit on either side, Luke placing Clifford in the middle, fastening their seatbelts and both ignoring the tense, awkward silence. There’s a light on the door that indicates that the driver can hear their conversation, anyway, and Luke doesn’t particularly want to air his and Ashton’s dirty laundry in front of a stranger, so the silence suits him just fine. 

He watches the barren fields pass by, eyes heavy, and yet knowing he won’t be able to sleep if he tries. He steadfastly doesn’t think about what Ashton’s doing, sat only a metre away from him, and the fact that he’s now stuck in this cold, drab, foreign country with nobody but Ashton. 

“Hey,” Ashton says quietly after a while, so quietly that Luke has to look over to see whether or not he imagined it. Ashton’s looking at him, a slightly apprehensive look on his face. 

“What?” 

“Did you sleep? On the flight?” Luke swallows. 

“Not much,” he says. 

“I did on the first flight,” Ashton says, and he’s saying it pointedly, like Luke’s supposed to understand some greater meaning behind it. 

“Okay?” Luke says, nonplussed. 

“I mean,” Ashton says, and now he sounds a little nervous. “I slept better. With you.” Luke blinks at him. 

“Oh,” is all his exhausted mind can produce for him, not giving him the capacity to lie. 

“Would you…” Ashton trails off, and bites his lip. 

“Would I what?” 

“Sleep with me?” Luke chokes on his next breath, and Ashton’s eyes widen, and he starts to trip over himself in his haste to correct himself. “I mean, like, purely innocent, like literally sleeping, I don’t mean f-” Luke holds his hand up to stop him, because he does not want to hear another word of that thought. 

“How?” he asks instead, because he’s so fucking tired that a twenty minute power nap with Ashton is actually sounding vaguely not like the worst thing in the world. Ashton shrugs, a little tentatively. 

“Lean on me?” he suggests. 

“What, on your shoulder?” 

“That’s what you did last time.” Luke swallows. Great. Fuck. Ashton had been awake, then. 

“Oh,” he says, and then, before he can stop himself, his fatigued mind adds: “Okay.” 

“Okay?” Ashton says, surprised. Luke shrugs uncomfortably. 

“I’m fucking exhausted,” he says. “And, y’know. It’s just resting my head on your shoulder. Not exactly a declaration that I want you back in my life.” He adds on the last sentence a little meanly, and watches something flash across Ashton’s face briefly before he schools his features back into neutrality and nods. Luke hesitates for a moment, and then unclips his seatbelt, picks Clifford up and shuffles into the middle seat, busying himself with setting Clifford down and clipping the seatbelt on so he won’t have to face Ashton and the slightly musky pine-oak-spice smell that’s hitting him like a fucking brick. Eventually, though, he has nowhere else to turn, and he pauses a moment longer before slowly bringing his head down to rest on Ashton’s shoulder. 

Almost as soon as he’s done it, he feels his eyelids start to droop, comfortable tiredness padding every half-thought in his mind, easy sleepiness slowing the thudding of his heart. He barely has time to form another coherent thought before he’s being tapped awake, turning annoyed and bleary-eyed to face whoever has woken him. 

“‘Scuse me?” It’s the cab driver, and Luke stirs, wondering whether resting your head on someone’s shoulder is, like, against cab rules, or something. Did the guy really pull over just to tell them off? 

“Huh?” Luke manages, peeling himself away from Ashton and blinking properly. It’s brighter now, buildings towering over either side of Luke, and he frowns. They were in fields about two seconds ago. London’s a weird fucking place. 

“We’re here,” the cab driver says. 

“Huh?” Luke says again, because that doesn’t make sense. The cab driver seems to notice Luke’s confusion, because he grins wryly and says: “We’ve arrived, mate. You fell asleep about half an hour ago.” 

“What?” Luke says, and he hears a soft groan to his right; Ashton slowly returning to consciousness. “That wasn’t half an hour ago.” 

“Certainly was,” the cab driver says. “You want me to get your bags?” 

“No, no, we’ll manage,” Luke says, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he’d slept for _half an hour_ without even noticing. He grabs Clifford and clambers out of the cab without waiting for Ashton, because his cash is in the boot, and moments later Ashton joins him in dragging their bags out of the back. Neither of them say anything, which means they’re both saying something with their silence, and Luke suddenly wants to fly back to Sydney, wants Michael and Calum to come and console him because he might have a _second_ soulmate experience with Ashton, wants his fucking _mum_. 

“How much?” Luke asks Ashton, when he gets to his wallet. 

“Eighty-five,” Ashton says, and Luke’s eyes widen. That’s, like, a hundred and fifty dollars.

“Fucking hell,” he says, fishing two twenties and a ten out of his wallet and holding them out for Ashton. “Should have taken the fucking tube.” Ashton smiles at that, and then disappears around the side of the cab to pay the driver. Luke drags his bags onto the pavement, staring up at the foreboding looking hotel in front of him and shivering in the cold, waiting for Ashton. God, he never thought he’d miss the cloying Sydney heat, but he’d give anything to be sweating on the beach right now. 

“Is this it?” he asks Ashton when Ashton reappears, nodding up at the building behind them, and Ashton nods. Luke kicks his suitcases, getting them onto their back wheels, waiting for Ashton to get his in his hands, and they head into the building. 

“Hello,” Ashton says politely to the receptionist, when they get in. “Irwin and Hemmings, please.” Luke doesn’t like the way his name slips so easily out of Ashton’s lips, but swallows it down. 

“Oh, yes,” the receptionist says, beady eyes staring at the screen in front of her. “You’re with UCL.” 

“Uh,” Luke says, at the same time that Ashton says, “Yes.” Well. Good thing Ashton knows what’s going on. 

“Well, here are your room keys,” she says, slapping two key cards onto the desk. Luke and Ashton take one each. “You’re in room 203.” Luke waits, but she doesn’t add anything else. 

“And me?” he asks. 

“And you,” she says. Luke blinks. 

“No, I mean-” 

“Is there only one room?” Ashton asks, and the receptionist frowns, and nods. Ashton turns to Luke, a crease of concern between his brows. 

“We’re part of the group living together,” he sighs. 

Fuck.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello...its been a full fucking month...jesus christ...i hope everyone has been doing okay and keeping safe and well! please update me on what's been going on in your lives if u would like to because i feel like i actually know u lot now i mean...u definitely know me we have been on a JOURNEY in these a/ns 
> 
> what have i been up to in that month helen? well i'm glad you asked helen i've fallen into a britpop hole for some reason which has led to me thinking about maybe writing a britpop!malum au. listen hear me out: michael and calum as childhood friends who somehow drift apart in late adolescence and because i can't resist michael joins blur somehow and calum's in oasis and so they're like the britpop romeo and juliet...yes i'm fully aware nobody wants this but what is fic for if not to indulge the author
> 
> on the topic of britpop this chapter is brought to you as follows: the first ~3k by stop crying your heart out (oasis), the latter ~3k by once (liam gallagher) and the man who built the moon (noel gallagher). yes i am one of those people that hears a song they like and then listens to it on repeat for a week straight until my REM sleep is literally the beat of the song. just in case you wanted to know the VIBE for this chapter you can listen along to the soundtrack of my breakdown ! 
> 
> now onto the topic of the actual fic: this chapter is hopefully starting to get somewhere...we are moving...we are progressing...luke is maybe having some growth? whiny little baby luke is actually making some (emphasis on some) mature decisions? insanity...true insanity. also i have some dedications to dish out for this chapter although i don't actually know whether they will read this a/n or if anyone actually reads them at all i bet bella is gonna see the word britpop at the start of this and be like fuck that but i want to thank bella for just. existing and being the literal light of my life i am really very grateful to know her. of course i am also endlessly grateful for ainslee (extra thanks to ainslee for having such good Thoughts about this fic and listening to me whine about it all the time) and lou (extra thanks to lou for falling into the britpop hole with me). also to meg for being so sweet about this fic and for vibing with whiny little luke what an inspiration also to my spoiler anon for actually being the reason this chapter got written at all and to m&m for being insanely talented (nothing to do with this fic i just want to plug your talent at all times) and for being so lovely to me all the time i adore u. most of all i would really really genuinely like to thank anyone who is still reading this and especially people who leave comments on it i promise you none of this would get written were it not for people's encouragement and comments it means so much to me and i'm so grateful for each and every single one 
> 
> if u do not already please join me on the hell that is my [tumblr](http://calumcest.tumblr.com) i can offer u such wonderful things as 1. my terrible taste in men 2. extra drabbles/fics that aren't posted on ao3 3. my insane ramblings in the tags 
> 
> my a/ns being as long as the fucking fic itself? thats how you know its a softirwin(TM) production

It’s a twin room, thank God, because Luke would have rather slept in the hallway than shared a bed with Ashton for four weeks. 

“I’m taking the window bed,” he announces, before Ashton has a chance to say anything, out of pure spite, because he knows Ashton likes sleeping by the window. Or knew, maybe. He’s not sure anymore. 

Ashton opens and then closes his mouth, nods curtly, and puts his carry-on bag on the bed nearest the bathroom. Luke puts Clifford down on the bed first, muttering at him to stop fucking yapping (which Clifford, of course, ignores), and then drops his suitcases next to it with a sigh. 

“So,” Ashton says, and his voice fills the entire room, too loud and too much, a jarring reminder that Ashton’s here, in Luke’s space, and Luke’s got no option but to live with it. “Should we go out?” Luke blinks at him. 

“What?” he says. 

“Well,” Ashton says, with an uncomfortable shrug. “Study doesn’t start ‘til tomorrow, and it’s only nine. Thought we could spend the day exploring?” Luke stares at him. 

“Think I’d rather spend my last day of freedom alone,” he says, a little harshly. Ashton blinks, and Luke doesn’t miss the flash of hurt that crosses his face, but then he nods again. 

“Have you still got my UK number?” he says, and Luke hesitates, and then nods. He’s not sure why it feels like he’s giving something away by admitting that he’d never deleted Ashton’s numbers; he’d been the one to text Ashton about the tattoos first, so clearly Ashton already knows that Luke still had his Australian number, at least. “Well. Text me if you need anything?” 

“Don’t think I’ll need anything,” Luke says, and Ashton sighs, and Luke feels a little small, a little stupid, like Ashton’s a patient parent putting up with a melodramatic teenager. 

“I’m going to head off, then,” Ashton says, a touch awkwardly, and Luke just nods, busying himself with getting Clifford out of his travel cage, thinking he’ll ask at reception for directions to the nearest park and let Clifford stretch his legs. He steadfastly doesn’t look at Ashton as Ashton gathers his things together, patting his coat pocket to make sure he’s got everything, and then slips out of the room, door clicking shut behind him. 

As soon as Ashton’s left, Luke suddenly feels simultaneously relieved and overwhelmed. He feels like he can breathe a little easier, think a little clearer without Ashton in his personal space, making him feel like he has to be alert, on edge, but the hotel room feels strangely empty without him. Luke shakes his head, tries to get the latter thought out of his mind, focusing on Clifford’s insistent yaps to draw him back to reality and distract him. 

“ _Alright,_ little man, we’re _going,_ ” Luke mutters, fumbling around in his bag for Clifford’s lead. Clifford jumps around at his feet, already panting, and Luke rolls his eyes, clips the lead on, checks he’s got his room key and phone in his pocket and heads out of the room. 

He decides to take the stairs, since he doesn’t think Clifford’s got the patience to wait for the lift, which proves to be the right decision when Clifford’s straining at his lead trying to bound down the stairs, giving Luke reproachful looks whenever he tugs him back. They’re only on the second floor, so it’s not long before Luke’s back in the lobby, and Clifford finally pulls himself together and trots smartly at Luke’s heel, giving other people milling in the area imperious looks as they pass. 

“Hi,” Luke says, and the receptionist smiles politely up at him. “I’d like to walk my dog. Can you tell me where the nearest park is?” She nods. 

“Of course, sir,” she says, and pulls out a brochure. Luke mentally pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s going to look like a massive fucking tourist walking around with one of those. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get mugged. 

“You just need to turn left out of the hotel, take a right at the end of the road, take the second left after that, take two rights, and you’ll be at the park,” she says, trailing her pen across the streets and ending it with a flourish, circling a rectangle of green on the map and smiling at him again. Luke smiles back, having taken absolutely none of that in, thanks her, pockets the map and decides he’ll probably just walk around the nearby backstreets for a while until Clifford’s worn out to lower his chances of getting lost. 

Clifford, it turns out, is surprisingly tired, having apparently spent all of his energy on pestering Luke to take him out. He only manages about half an hour of walking up and down a few streets around the hotel before he’s flagging, sitting down and staring up at Luke beseechingly when Luke tries to pull him along. A passing couple throw Luke an amused look and titter to themselves, and Luke sighs. 

“C’mon, little man,” he says, tugging again. Clifford refuses to budge, just stares up at Luke with a look that Luke knows all too well. “Come on, Cliff, you’re embarrassing me. It’s _two_ streets away. You can walk that far.” Clifford stays put, and Luke rolls his eyes, but bends down and scoops Clifford up into his arms. Clifford immediately nuzzles into Luke happily, licking at his neck, and Luke pulls back, wrinkling his nose. “Gross, Cliff, don’t do that.” 

Luke pretty much speedwalks back to the hotel because little though Clifford is, he’s surprisingly heavy after a while, and Luke’s much weaker than he looks. He throws the receptionist a polite smile on his way back up to the room, unclips Clifford from the lead as soon as he’s in there and rummages around in one of his suitcases for the bed Michael had shoved on top of all of Luke’s warmest clothes. Clifford watches him patiently, and hops into the bed as soon as Luke’s unfolded it, curls up and closes his eyes. Luke can’t help but smile fondly down at him, bending down to press a kiss to the top of Clifford’s head and scratching behind his ears. 

“I’m going to go out again, little man,” he tells Clifford. “I’ll be back to give you your dinner, though.” Clifford just sniffs, which Luke takes to mean ‘yeah, sure, now fuck off and let me sleep’, and Luke straightens again, throws Clifford one final fond look and heads back out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. 

He decides it’s probably fine if he wanders aimlessly, since the brochure in his pocket has the name of the hotel on it and Michael had paid for his phone plan to cover the UK for six weeks so he can look it up when he inevitably gets lost. Having spent half an hour in the streets surrounding the hotel already, he decides to get on the tube and head somewhere new, picking a stop name he recognises - Leicester Square sounds vaguely familiar. 

Leicester Square, it turns out, sounds familiar because it’s a tourist hotspot. Luke’s ducking and weaving between people, mumbling apologies as he slips through gaps that he doesn’t actually fit through and splits up groups (but seriously, he thinks, slightly irritated as he smiles politely, who the fuck walks in a row of five?). There are countless little side alleys and back roads leading off the main street, but even those are difficult to walk through, filled with the native Londoners who know their way through the labyrinth of twisting streets and know better than to be anywhere near Leicester Square in the first place. 

Eventually, half to get out of the crowds and half because he’s actually pretty hungry, Luke ducks into a Costa and buys himself a ham and cheese toastie, balking at the price when the cashier rings it up. Five fucking pounds, what’s that, ten dollars? For _one_ sandwich? Fucking hell. He’s definitely going to be demanding those reimbursements from the university. 

He’s waiting for his sandwich to come out of the toaster, only two baristas serving a queue of at least twenty, when someone taps him on the shoulder a little tentatively, making him jump. He whips around, wondering whether he’s in the way or something, and comes face to face with-

Ashton. 

“Are you serious?” he demands, before he can think about it. Ashton shrugs, and looks a little uncomfortable. “Are you following me?” 

“I was already here,” Ashton says. “I’ve got a table.” He waves his hand in the directions of an empty table in the far corner, and Luke can see Ashton’s coat bunched up on one of the chairs. 

“Oh,” Luke says. Ashton gives him a look, simultaneously sad and calculating, and for a brief moment, Luke thinks _fuck, his eyes are pretty._ Jesus Christ. Maybe he should have stayed at the hotel and napped. 

“D’you want to sit with me?” Ashton says. Luke hesitates - _not particularly_ , is the first petulant thought to cross his mind, before his rational side kicks in and tells him sleepily that he won’t find a seat anywhere else - and then nods. 

“Ham and cheese toastie?” the barista calls, and Luke steps forwards, takes it from her hand and heads wordlessly in the direction of Ashton’s table, Ashton in tow. 

“Sorry,” Ashton says, when Luke picks up Ashton’s coat off the seat and holds it out for him. He takes it from Luke and his finger brushes against Luke’s, and something like liquid gold rushes through Luke, making him giddy from head to toe. It’s the sleeplessness, he tells himself, averting his gaze and snatching his hand away. God knows he’s felt even more unexplainable things on the same amount of sleep. 

“‘S alright,” Luke says, sitting down to avoid thinking about the warmth of Ashton’s finger brushing against his own and the way his finger is still burning from the contact. “You didn’t know I was going to be here.” Ashton hesitates, and then busies himself with tucking his coat behind him, like he’s looking for something to do that isn’t stare across the table at Luke. Luke’s not going to complain about that, and takes a bite out of the first half of the toastie so he won’t have to say anything else. 

They sit in silence for a moment, Luke eating his toastie, Ashton fiddling with the bracelet on his left hand. The silence is uncomfortable, oppressive, and Luke kind of wishes he’d just sat on the fucking floor or something. Nothing makes him wish that more, though, than when Ashton opens his mouth and says: “I wondered.” 

Luke swallows his last bite of toastie with a frown. 

“You wondered what?” he says. Ashton shrugs, tension and discomfort visible in the movement. 

“I wondered whether we’d bump into each other,” he says. Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Not this again,” he mutters, but it’s more tired than anything. Ashton sighs, and drops his hands onto the table. 

“Look,” he says carefully. “I don’t think us bumping into each other all the time is a coincidence.” 

“Fucking hell,” Luke says, but there’s no heat behind the words. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and squeezes them shut. He’s too fucking tired for this. 

“Luke,” Ashton says, like Luke’s being unreasonable. “We’ve lived in the same city for years-” Luke opens his mouth to interrupt, because Ashton was always away half the time when they were together, and he can’t imagine that’s changed much “-okay, on-off, because I’m in LA sometimes - but we’ve not _once_ bumped into each other. Then we get the tattoos, and suddenly I’m seeing you every other week?” 

“What’s your point?” Luke says, a little irritably. “You think this is some grand plan from the universe to make us fall back in love? What, I’m Cathy, you’re Heathcliff?” Ashton bites his lip, and Luke’s mouth twists bitterly in a humourless smile. “This isn’t fucking romantic, Ashton. You leaving me was-” he cuts himself off. He’s not quite ready to tell Ashton _that_ , yet. “Awful,” he says, eventually. “This isn’t part of some, like, big romantic redemption arc for you. You fucked up, and you fucked me over, and we’ve just got to find some way to live with the tattoos. That’s why we’re both here, isn’t it?” Ashton’s silent for a moment, and if Luke’s not mistaken, looks a little paler than he had a minute ago, and then nods. 

“Can we at least be civil?” Ashton says, and then, seeing the look on Luke’s face, adds: “We’re stuck together for four weeks, Luke. I know you don’t like me, and I’m not asking for- for friendship, or anything. I’m just asking for you to be civil with me.” Luke exhales heavily. 

“Fine,” he says tiredly, before he has the chance to think too much about it. “Civil.” 

“Civil,” Ashton agrees. 

(Luke’s pretty sure _civil_ doesn’t involve thinking _God, I’d forgotten how long his eyelashes are, and the way you can see a hint of his dimple when he speaks,_ but he’s also pretty sure that’s entirely to do with the exhaustion, and nothing to do with him.) 

\-------

Ashton talks Luke into going down to the Houses of Parliament, with a combination of a sincere look on his face, big, serious eyes as he says _look, we don’t want to risk another bumping-into-each-other tattoo, and it’ll just be civil,_ and the fact that Luke just doesn’t have the energy to argue. Plus, he thinks, Ashton seems to know where he’s going, and Luke had forgotten to take his charger with him so he’s kind of fucked if he gets lost. 

The walk down from Costa to the Houses of Parliament is only about twenty minutes, but feels so much fucking longer, both of them all too aware of the awkward silence hanging between them, amplified by the noise of the city surrounding them. They walk through Trafalgar Square, and Ashton tells Luke something about art installations and the fourth plinth and Luke just nods along, trying his best to do this whole _civil_ thing by quelling his instinct to snap _I don’t fucking know what a plinth is and you know full fucking well I don’t care about art._ Ashton seems to sense it from him anyway, though, because he falters and then says, with an uncomfortable laugh, “You probably don’t care about this anyway.” 

“Not really,” Luke admits, because they’d said civil, not dishonest. Ashton smiles wryly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Sorry,” he says, and Luke just hums, and they fall back into an awkward silence. 

It’s easier, Luke finds, when a man in a suit shoulders into him and keeps walking without so much as a mumbled apology and Ashton turns to him, outraged, and says _Londoners really are cunts,_ if they interact with each other through their surroundings. Talking about people, things, even the fucking weather, adds a sheen of superficiality, a layer of removal that they can both look at and pretend there’s nothing more to it, no years of hurt and pain bubbling beneath the surface. 

“How is it this sunny yet this cold?” Luke grumbles, shielding his eyes and squinting up at Big Ben. 

“You should be here in April,” Ashton says, stabbing the button at the traffic light repeatedly. 

“I’ve got no intentions of being here any longer than I have to be,” Luke mutters. “What are we looking at, again?” 

“It’s _parliament,_ Luke,” Ashton says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Luke. 

“So?” Luke says. “We’ve got a parliament.” 

“And? Have you ever seen it?” Ashton says shrewdly, and Luke scowls, biting back the scathing retort on the tip of his tongue. Civil and Ashton are two concepts that he assumes will take a while to marry in his mind. 

“Whatever,” he says, stepping out into the road as the light turns green. “Just don’t get why I’m supposed to care about some random country’s government, is all.” Ashton doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, jogging to catch up with Luke, and they walk the rest of the distance to the buildings in silence. 

It’s quite imposing, Luke thinks, up close. The buildings are sort of dirty - or maybe they’re meant to look like that - and incredibly intricate, bordering on fussy. It towers over them, looking more like a palace than a place of governance, Big Ben casting a long shadow across the road. He’s not sure he’d want to be governed from this place.

“I don’t like it,” he says. 

“Really?” Ashton says, squinting up at the buildings. “I think it’s kind of pretty.” _You would,_ Luke thinks darkly. Old, ornate and overcomplicated? That’s exactly the kind of thing Ashton would get excited about and find unwarranted symbolism in. 

“Yeah, well,” Luke says instead, because he’s pretty sure that thought doesn’t count as civil. “Think it’s just a bit too elaborate.” 

“It’s Gothic Revival,” Ashton says, like Luke’s supposed to have a single fucking clue what that means. Actually, Luke thinks bitterly, he’s probably fully aware that Luke doesn’t have any idea what that means, and is hoping Luke will take the bait and ask so Ashton can demonstrate his massive intellect, or whatever. 

“Right,” Luke says, a little shortly. Ashton glances at him, looking a touch taken aback, but then looks back at the buildings. 

“We can go somewhere else,” he says, and it’s an offer. An olive branch. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, because annoyance at not knowing anything about architectural styles aside, looking at an old building is just pretty fucking boring. 

“There’s an aquarium not too far away,” Ashton says. “I remember you-” he stops himself, and Luke swallows. Yeah. He loves aquariums. He loves them so much that Ashton had taken him to the Sydney Aquarium for their third anniversary, a month or two before he’d broken up with Luke. 

(Two months on the dot. Not that Luke has both dates seared into his mind, or anything.) 

“Yeah,” Luke says again, to fill the silence of both of them thinking back to that day. “Let’s go to the aquarium.” Ashton hesitates, and glances at Luke like he wants to say something else, a sort of semi-pained expression on his face, and then he sighs, shakes his head, and throws Luke a tight smile. 

“Let’s go to the aquarium,” he agrees. 

\-------

The aquarium, it turns out, is a much better choice. 

Despite the odd screaming child, the aquarium has a calming silence to it, an almost pensive quiet that pierces to the depths of Luke’s soul. It settles the air between him and Ashton, means they’re not silent for lack of civil things to say, but rather because they’re both caught up in the muted beauty of the ocean. 

They don’t walk together, because Ashton likes to pore over every single placard and study every creature in minute detail and Luke’s drawn to the pretty, colourful fish. It’s Luke, though, who’s always the last to move on, and Ashton waits for him before they head to the next room. It’s almost nice, Luke thinks, as he heads for the door and sees Ashton slip through it when he sees Luke’s ready to move on, that they don’t have to have awkward conversations about it, that they can just understand and fall into it. 

(He tries not to think about why.) 

They spend hours in the aquarium, dawdling in every room, because they spent so much fucking money on it and they’re both going to be damned if they won’t milk it for all it’s worth. Luke spends an extra long time looking at the clownfish, for some reason, hypnotised by the way they can weave in and out of the anemones. There’s some kind of symbolism to be found there, he thinks, something about toxicity and safety, but he’s too tired to come up with it himself. Ashton would probably correct him if he tried, anyway. 

Ashton’s particularly taken by the sharks, it turns out. He’s already staring at the huge tank in awe when Luke gets into the room, barely even blinking as his eyes follow one shark after the other. The room itself is dark, like the rest of the aquarium, but the tank’s so huge that Ashton’s bathed in light, rippling and shimmering and Luke, for the briefest of moments, feels something sharp stab at his heart, something he remembers feeling the last time he’d stood in an aquarium with Ashton. It makes his stomach clench, twist in on itself, because he knows exactly what he’d identified that feeling as before. 

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Ashton says, interrupting Luke’s train of thought before it can take the leap off the cliff edge of panic, and Luke looks up at the sharks. 

“I guess?” he says, because he doesn’t really see it. 

“You used to like them,” Ashton says, sounding a little surprised. 

“I used to like a lot of things,” Luke says. _I used to like you,_ he adds spitefully in his head, and sort of hopes Ashton’s telepathic. 

“Guess I’ve got to get to know you again,” Ashton says, and it’s a little wistful, a little sad. Luke doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what would sum up _I’m not sure I want you to, I don’t think I’ll give you a chance_ and _g_ _ood fucking luck_ in a civil way. 

They stand there for a while, watching the sharks, and people filter in and out of the room behind them. It feels oddly hypnotic, being stood there with Ashton, the only two static parts of a moving whole. He wonders if the sharks feel the same, swimming aimlessly in their tank, watching the world pass by and powerless to move with it. 

“I’m sorry,” Ashton says quietly, after at least ten minutes have passed. It’s so quiet that Luke thinks he might have misheard it - maybe it was the family behind them, or just the sound of the tank - but he can sense Ashton stiffen next to him, like he’s preparing for backlash of some sort. 

“What?” Luke says, just to make sure he’s heard right. 

“I’m sorry,” Ashton repeats. Luke pauses, waiting for Ashton to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t really have to, though, Luke finds, because he knows what Ashton means. 

“I know,” Luke says eventually. Ashton swallows, but says nothing, just carries on gazing at the sharks, but out of the corner of his eye Luke can see that Ashton’s gaze is fixed now, not following the sharks around.

They stand in silence until an announcement blares through the system telling them that the aquarium is closing soon, making them both jump. 

“What time is it?” Luke asks, just for something to say. 

“Uh,” Ashton says, pulling his phone out. “Five.” Fucking hell. It feels much later than that. “Do you want to go back to the hotel?” Ashton adds, like he knows what Luke’s thinking. Luke nods. 

“I’m fucking exhausted,” he admits, as they head back up the steps away from the sharks and towards the exit. 

“Me too,” Ashton says. “I wanted to stay up until at least ten, but…” he trails off, stifling a yawn, and Luke can’t help but snort. Ashton smiles, small but genuine. “Fuck off,” he says, but it’s good-natured. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, as they traipse out into the little shop. “Think I’m just going to crash when we get back.” Ashton nods, pushing open the door to the exit. Luke’s expecting the glare of brilliant sunlight to hit him, squints in preparation for the onslaught of light, but it’s pitch fucking black. 

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding kind of perplexed and kind of outraged. 

“What?” Ashton says. Luke gestures up at the sky with one hand, and uses the other to pull his coat in closer towards himself, because fucking hell, it’s _freezing._

“It’s five o’clock,” he says. Ashton looks up at the sky, and then at him, an amused expression on his face. 

“Wrong hemisphere,” he says, and Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Fucking miserable place,” Luke grumbles, tucking his arms in and huddling in on himself. “No wonder they invaded the rest of the fucking world, Jesus. I wouldn’t want to stay here either.” Ashton says nothing, but when they pass under a streetlight, Luke sees the corners of his lips tilted upwards, and something warm and pleasant spreads from his stomach outwards. 

“D’you actually know where you’re going?” he asks, when Ashton takes a sharp right turn onto a bridge. 

“Of course I know,” Ashton says, in that infuriating, I’m-Ashton-Irwin-and-I’m-an-intellectual manner that Luke had never liked. Luke rolls his eyes, not entirely playfully, and jogs to keep up with him. 

Ashton leads them across the bridge, past the parliament buildings again, up a long road that a lot of people are ambling down, and then cuts into a small alley on the right. 

“You definitely don’t fucking know where you’re going,” Luke says, standing at the mouth of the road, something uneasy in his stomach. “I’m not going down here.” 

“I know where I’m going,” Ashton says. 

“Where are you going?” Luke says sceptically. 

“Charing Cross.” 

“Why is that down an alleyway?” 

“It’s just a shortcut.” Luke stares at him, narrowing his eyes. 

“Why can’t we walk on the main road?” he asks, because it feels right. Something about the alleyway feels wrong. 

“We can,” Ashton says. “But it’ll take longer.” Luke makes no indications of moving, and Ashton sighs, and it’s tinged with sadness. “Come on, Luke, are you serious? You think I’m going to, what, murder you in an alley in London?” Well. Not specifically, but something’s telling Luke not to follow Ashton into that alley. Much more than that, it’s telling him not to let Ashton into that alley, but Luke’s trying to ignore that part of it. 

“I just don’t want to go that way,” Luke says stubbornly. “Let’s just go on the main road.” 

“It’ll take much longer that way,” Ashton says. 

“I don’t care,” Luke says. “We’re not exactly fucking wanting for time, are we?” Ashton takes a step further into the alleyway, almost out of Luke’s line of vision. 

“Come _on_ , Luke,” he says, and takes another step, and Luke’s stomach tightens uncomfortably as he does. 

“Don’t,” Luke says, before he can stop himself. 

“Why?” Ashton says, sounding exasperated. “Look, the longer you stand here arguing, the longer it’ll take us either way.” 

“I’m taking the main road,” Luke says. “Just- let’s fucking walk on the main road.” 

“You don’t even know the way,” Ashton says. “I know the way.” 

“I’m not going that way.” Even in the darkness and despite the distance, Luke can see Ashton roll his eyes. 

“There’s nothing fucking down here, Luke,” Ashton calls, taking another step into the alleyway, and Luke edges forwards without even thinking about it, needing to keep Ashton in sight. It’s not really working, though, because Ashton’s walking further in and Luke’s at an angle to the alleyway, and it’s making him panic a little.

“Don’t fucking go down there,” Luke says, through gritted teeth. “Ashton, seriously. Just fucking come on the main road with me.” 

“What’s your problem?” Ashton says, and even though he sounds genuinely surprised and curious, it makes a flash of anger flare up in Luke. 

“Can you stop being a cunt for, like, two fucking minutes?” he bites out. 

“Luke, I-” Ashton cuts himself off with a shout, and the anger’s gone, replaced with pure fucking fear and panic and _protect protect protect_ running through Luke’s mind, and Luke’s barely even aware of his surroundings as he takes off, sprinting as fast as he can to the alleyway, getting to the entrance to it just as Ashton comes running out, wild-eyed. He doesn’t stop or say anything, just grabs Luke’s hand as he passes and tugs him hard in the opposite direction. They run to the main road, Luke’s heart pounding in a way that definitely isn’t just from the exercise, and then they run up it, and they don’t stop running until they’re outside the station. Luke doesn’t even realise that they’re still holding hands until Ashton drops his hand to lean on his knees, panting, hair completely windswept as it falls into his eyes. 

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Luke spits, fury beginning to set in between the racing heartbeats and gasped breaths. 

“Someone fucking-” Ashton waves a hand, like it’s going to explain what ‘someone’ did. It doesn’t fucking matter, because those two words alone are enough to make Luke’s heart tighten, to make his stomach clench.

“I fucking _said_ -”

“I _know_ , but it’s fucking five p.m., and I _always_ go that way-”

“I _told_ you-”

“I _know_ , Luke,” Ashton says, breathing almost back to normal, and he straightens and gives Luke a look that looks almost sad. “Why d’you think that was?” 

“Why do I- are you fucking insane? Because it’s a creepy fucking alleyway? Anyone would fucking know not to go down there!” Luke says, throwing his hands in the air. 

“You were so fucking adamant,” Ashton says. 

“ _Yeah_ , and if you’d fucking _listened_ -” 

“Luke,” Ashton interrupts. “I didn’t sense fucking anything.” Luke stops.

“Are you trying to say this is another fucking soulmate experience?” he says. “We don’t have _three._ Most people don’t even have _one._ ” 

“No,” Ashton says. “I think it’s the same one. The first one. The protecting one.” 

Oh. 

_Oh._

It’s kind of a blur already, even though it’s only been like, three minutes, but Luke remembers the haze of _protect protect protect_ that clouded every single other one of his thoughts, that stopped anything and everything else - including his own safety - from mattering, that made him move without even thinking, running straight fucking into the alleyway he’d been so uneasy about because nothing mattered more than Ashton. 

“Fuck,” he says, and Ashton nods grimly. 

“Yeah,” he says. Neither of them need to say _didn’t realise it went both ways,_ because it’s both written clearly across their faces. 

“You got this on the fucking phone?” Luke can’t help but ask. 

“Yeah,” Ashton says again. Luke rakes a hand through his hair, trying to organise his thoughts. All he can really focus on is the _what the fuck_ and _Jesus Christ_ and _fucking hell_ swirling around in a mess in his mind. 

“Well,” he says. “Shit.” Ashton huffs out a shaky laugh, raises his eyebrows, and nods, and Luke thinks that about sums it up. 

\-------

They don’t talk much on the journey back to the hotel. Luke snipes at Ashton when Ashton tries to show him how to use his contactless card on the barriers, because he’d much rather use a paper ticket, thank you very fucking much, and Ashton calls Luke back when he heads down the wrong escalator. Luke asks once what their stop is and nods when Ashton answers him, and then they don’t speak again until they’re in the safety of the brightly-lit hotel lobby. 

Luke’s not entirely sure how to take the silence between them in the lift up to the second floor. It still feels awkward, stilted, uncomfortable, but there’s something grander now, something bigger than the both of them that they can both feel but neither of them want to acknowledge. 

Luke fusses over Clifford when they get back into the hotel room, pulls out the pack of dog food he’d brought with him because he hadn’t been sure what brands the UK would have, and Clifford munches his dinner happily while Luke carefully removes his coat and plugs his phone in to charge, not looking at Ashton. It feels overcrowded, even though the room is made for two people and certainly big enough to accommodate both of them. 

He takes his time washing up Clifford’s bowl, refilling his water, but Clifford seems perfectly content to doze back off to sleep after his meal, leaving Luke with nothing to do but think about how fucking tired he actually is. 

“I think I might sleep,” he says, even though he doesn’t really have to announce it to Ashton. Ashton looks up from where he is on his bed, book in his hand, and nods. 

“I think I might too,” he says. “Do you want the bathroom first?” Luke blinks at him. 

“Oh,” he says. “Uh. Yeah. Thanks.” Ashton nods, and turns back to his book, but when Luke turns his back to get his things out of his still-packed suitcase, he can feel Ashton’s eyes on him. 

He makes quick work of putting his pyjamas on and brushing his teeth, only hesitating with his hand on the bathroom door handle to leave as he throws a quick glance at himself in the mirror, because he looks so fucking disarmed in his pyjamas, so strangely small and vulnerable. Whatever, he thinks, forcing himself to push the door open, because what the fuck else is he going to do, sleep in the bathroom? 

“Bathroom’s free,” he says, because it feels like what he should say, turning his back to Ashton and making a show out of putting his clothes in his suitcase. He should probably just unpack it, he thinks - he is going to be here for four weeks, after all - but not tonight. He’s too fucking tired for that. 

“Thanks,” Ashton says, and Luke hears the sound of a book closing and then feet shuffling as Ashton heads for the bathroom. He waits for the door to click shut behind him before tucking himself into bed, drawing the duvet close to his chin to try and keep the cold out. Why the fuck is it so cold in England, seriously? 

Ashton doesn’t take long, or maybe Luke falls into microsleep, or something, because it feels like it’s about two seconds before he’s coming out of the bathroom, placing his clothes on the chair opposite his bed, and getting into bed. He’s got plaid pyjama bottoms and a casual t-shirt on, and he looks just as disarmed and vulnerable as Luke had in the mirror, which makes Luke feel simultaneously better and worse. 

“Can I turn the light off?” Ashton asks, and Luke nods. Ashton reaches over, clicks the light switch, and they’re plunged into darkness. 

“Night,” Ashton says after a moment, and there’s a shuffling sound from his bed. 

“Night,” Luke says, suddenly wide awake. He rolls onto his side and stares at the wall opposite him, willing the exhaustion that he’s felt all day to return. Even if he hadn’t slept, like, three fucking hours, he should be tired; it’s the middle of the night in Sydney. 

He feels the time passing, times it by Ashton’s shuffling and Clifford’s even breathing and the noises from the street outside, and he’s sure it’s been at least an hour before there’s what sounds like Ashton flopping onto his back and sighing. 

“Are you awake?” he whispers. Luke debates saying nothing, but knows if he evens his breathing out now it’s going to be pretty fucking obvious he wasn’t. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little reluctantly. 

“I can’t sleep,” Ashton says. 

“Me either.” There’s a moment of silence, and then Ashton says- 

“We could push the beds together?” Luke squeezes his eyes shut, and Ashton takes the silence as hesitation. “Just for tonight. We’d sleep much better, and we probably need it for tomorrow.” 

“No,” Luke says. Civil is one thing, but spending an entire night pressed up against Ashton? That’s something else entirely. 

“Luke, I-” 

“Ashton, I said no.” Ashton’s silent for a moment, and then sighs. 

“Okay,” he says, and it sounds a little small. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, like. Push.” Luke inhales deeply, exhales heavily, and rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. 

“It’s fine,” he says. 

Ashton says nothing, but Luke doesn’t hear his breathing even out until Luke himself falls into an uneasy, dreamless sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning, exhausted and grumpy, Ashton’s staring up at the ceiling again (or maybe still).


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your eyes do not deceive you it is in fact another chapter of soulmate au after FOUR months yes i am an awful writer did you really expect anything else of me i have form please accept my humble terrible offering 
> 
> this chapter has backstory isnt that exciting basically i actually originally wrote this chapter uhh 2 months ago? but i HAAAAATED it like really did not vibe with it at all and my loves meg and bella read it and gave me feedback and basically i decided to sit on it and i sat on it for 2 months and tonight, filled with the desire to procrastinate the essay i have due this week and havent started researching for yet and the work thats due at 10:30am tomorrow that i havent even looked at yet, i decided to finally edit it. so here we go this chapter originally went in a completely different direction shes been chopped and changed and pruned 
> 
> i would also like to give a little shoutout to my spoiler twin because this fic would have died were it not for your comments about it that are lodged in my mind so thank you for caring about this fic and for caring about BRITPOP i cant even tell you how much i love your comments on that and when i finally have a millisecond to myself again i will be rewatching wilde kerle so i can write more in that 'verse <3 
> 
> life update! i'm at uni doing my masters now very exciting VERY stressful because now people take shit seriously? apparently i cannot be pulling allnighters at masters level which i am going to do anyway i cant lie to you but everyone seems to have their lives together very stressful also i have an insane amount of reading to do and all of it is boring however i'm vibing with the people here ive made some good friends the city is gorgeous were it not for my frankly heinous workload and its disgustingly scientific content (no offence stem students i simply would rather gouge out my own eyeballs than read about underlying bivariate normal distributions i'm a fucking HISTORY STUDENT why the HELL do i have to read this shite i don't understand a wrod of it. on that note if anyone understands uhhh All science and maths...hit a girl up) 
> 
> also pretty much this entire thing was written to valentina by public service broadcasting its a GREAT song i love it so much that and go! are my favourites off the album but the entire album is sick its basically a bunch of songs created using clips from the space race so like mission control/astronaut communications, tv broadcasts, kennedy's speech etc. its very cool i love it but dont be thinking i'm off my britpop bullshit meg sam and i spent over 6 hours listening to oasis together today my love for noel has not died you are not out of the woods yet

Luke takes Clifford out for a short walk in the morning, during which time Ashton showers and gets dressed, and as Luke’s trying to get Clifford to eat the food that he’s turning his nose up at for absolutely no discernible reason, Ashton says something about going down for breakfast, does Luke want anything? Luke looks up at him, shakes his head and mumbles something that he hopes sounds vaguely like  _ no, I’m not hungry, _ and Ashton just nods as he closes the door behind him, leaving Luke in their too-small and yet somehow too-big hotel room. Luke should be able to breathe, now that Ashton’s gone, should be able to sit back and relax and exhale freely, but every new inhale is tinged with that slight scent of pine and oak and spice, bittersweet on Luke’s tongue. It’s too much, makes his stomach flip in a way that’s at least eighty percent unpleasant, makes his head hurt and his heart and fists clench because of that last twenty percent, and because he doesn’t have  _ space,  _ now, even when Ashton’s not there. 

They’ve got to be at the research centre at ten, and Ashton doesn’t get back from breakfast until half-nine, so Luke’s in a foul fucking mood by the time they’ve got their things together and hurried out of the hotel. Ashton gets them lost on the way to the tube, too, and they’re really pushed for time by the time they get to Russell Square, where the building they’re supposed to be in by now apparently is. Ashton has the gall to chivvy Luke along when he stops to re-tie his shoelace, and Luke has to grit his teeth to stop himself hissing something vitriolic and spiteful in Ashton’s direction, half-hopping the rest of the way to the building with a sloppily tied shoelace and ducking down to re-tie it again when Ashton strides over to the receptionist and asks where the soulmate study is supposed to be taking place. 

The bloke at reception directs them to a room on the third floor, but the lift is broken so they have to take the stairs, and Luke’s thighs are burning by the time they turn into the room the guy had directed them to. It looks like a classroom, all desks and chairs and a projector screen at the front, and there’s a slightly uncomfortable-looking cluster of people standing in awkward silence towards the back of the room. Ashton glances over at Luke, an  _ is this it? Us and them?  _ sort of glance, and Luke just shrugs jerkily, following in Ashton’s wake to hover about two metres away from the nearest couple to them. It’s a middle-aged woman and man who are standing about three feet apart, like there’s some kind of invisible force field between the two of them, angled as far away from each other as it’s possible to get. It would look almost comical, actually, how viscerally uneasy they look in each other’s presence, if Luke weren’t acutely aware of the way he and Ashton are also stood three feet apart, of the way he’s leaning as far to the right and away from Ashton as he can. 

“Hi,” he hears Ashton say brightly, and has to stifle a groan, letting his eyes flutter shut as he exhales heavily. Trust Ashton to be the only one to fucking strike up a conversation in an uncomfortably silent room. “I’m Ashton.”

“Uh, Sally,” the woman says, a little hesitantly. “And this is Pete.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Ashton says happily, like he’s not aware of the fact that every single person in the room is listening to their conversation. “How long have you known each- uh?” He cuts himself off, seeming to realise that that’s probably not the best question to ask, given the reason for the study, but Sally just nods, like she understands. 

“Uh,” Sally says, glancing at Pete. “Twelve years, or so? Um.” She coughs delicately, and then adds: “Pete’s my sister’s husband.” 

Oh, Jesus Christ, Luke thinks, as someone across the room makes a choked-sounding noise and hastily (and badly) disguises it as a cough. Maybe his situation with Ashton isn’t so bad, after all.

“Oh,” Ashton says, sounding surprised, and like he’s not really sure how he should respond to that. “I, uh.” He pauses, and then turns to gesture at Luke. “This is Luke. He’s my ex.” Luke grimaces, and raises a hand in an awkward wave as he shoots Ashton a glare that he hopes conveys  _ do  _ not _ fucking drop me in the deep end like that. _ Jesus  _ fucking _ Christ.

“We’re exes too,” a couple across the room pipe up - a short, blonde woman and a taller, green-haired woman - and Ashton beams at them.

“We’re, uh,” a member of a couple standing incredibly stiffly opposite Ashton and Luke pipes up. “Olly here was my school bully.” Luke watches the muscles in this Olly’s jaw flex as it clenches, but he doesn’t say anything, just grits his teeth and stares steadfastly ahead of him, eyes boring into the wall a few feet to Luke’s right. 

“Vanessa’s my daughter-in-law,” a man at the back of the room says, nodding at the woman at least twenty years his junior standing to his right, looking incredibly pissed off, and Luke has to try his hardest not to wince. Jesus. 

There’s only one person who hasn’t spoken yet, a short, dark-haired woman who’s standing on her own in the far corner, looking like she wants the ground to swallow her up as everyone turns to look at her. 

“I, uh,” she says, and clears her throat uncomfortably. “My soulmate is, uh.” She hesitates, and then says: “I’m not actually sure I can-” but she’s interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open and two people striding in, a smiling man and a slightly harassed-looking woman. 

“Good morning,” the man says cheerily. “I’m Colin, one of the coordinators of the study, and this is my wonderful partner in crime, Jess.” There’s a smattering of murmured hellos as Jess raises her hand to the group. 

“Thank you so much for your time,” Colin says, clapping his hands together. “I know this study is inconvenient for many of you, and some of you have come an incredible distance to participate, but we’re hoping that this study will shed some light into the growth of soulmate tattoos.” He pauses, but nobody says anything, just shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably and looks at everyone but Colin. 

“We also have an issue of a certain, uh.” Colin clears his throat. “It’s a little delicate. One person involved in this study is, uh, a household name, and in order to protect their public image, has requested that non-disclosure agreements be signed. It’s nothing major, but of course, if it affects your decision to partake in the study, we completely understand. Nothing is binding until the contracts have been signed, and even then, you always have the option to pull out at any time.” He pauses, and looks around the room, shrewd blue eyes watching to see how each of them have reacted to the information. Luke wonders whether maybe this is a test, something to see whether their palpable curiosity will win out and make them work together with their soulmate to find out what celebrity is allegedly involved in this study, or something. He doesn’t trust psychologists. 

“Alright,” Colin says, when nobody speaks, and smiles brilliantly at them. “We have the contracts for you to read through and sign, and if that’s all in order, we’d like to start with a questionnaire and today’s blood samples.” There’s an assortment of murmured assent, and then Colin starts placing papers and pens on desks, and, after a hesitant glance around the room, people start moving towards them, muttering things to their soulmates under their breaths. 

“A celebrity?” Ashton says quietly, slipping into a seat at the nearest desk. Luke sits down next to him, because where the fuck else is he going to go - he’s not about to strike up conversation with that bloke and his fucking daughter-in-law, Christ - and shrugs. 

“Might be a test,” he says, and Ashton shakes his head. 

“Nah,” he says, completely confident. “I wonder who it is.” He pauses, leaning back as Colin comes by and puts a pile of paper in front of them, and then leans in and adds in a conspiratorial whisper: “It’s got to be someone huge, otherwise they’d be here.” 

“Huge?” Luke echoes. “Someone huge wouldn’t be partaking in a random university study in London.” Ashton raises his eyebrows.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” he says. Luke knows what he’s trying to say;  _ if we’ll fly all the way from Australia for this, who’s to say a celebrity wouldn’t be involved? _

“We’re also not household names,” Luke says, reaching for a pen and one of the contracts Colin’s placed on the table. “If I had the money, I wouldn’t be here.” 

“It’s not about money,” Ashton says, pulling the other contract towards himself and handing Luke one of the NDAs. “This is all new. You’ve got to follow the research.”

“The research’ll come to you if you pay enough,” Luke retorts shortly, and then shields the side of his face with one hand under the pretence of focusing on the contract so that Ashton won’t respond. Ashton sighs, long-suffering and a little exasperated, but takes the hint and starts reading his own contract. Luke does actually start reading through his contract then, but keeps one eye on Ashton, because he’s certain Ashton’s going to find something to complain about, certain that no matter how much Ashton thinks he’s changed he’s still a pedant, and he tries not to think about the fact he remembers that about Ashton as he re-reads every sentence at least twice and very carefully. After all, it’d be embarrassing if Luke signed the contract and handed it back in happily and Ashton found a flaw in it that Luke had missed, wouldn’t it? 

Despite his best efforts, though, he can’t find anything, so he just signs and dates it and sets it aside, reaching for the NDA. Ashton’s still on the contract, frowning at the third page of it, but he hasn’t been scribbling on the paper like he usually does when he’s making notes of  _ ambiguous phrasing _ or  _ inconsistent _ or  _ lacking clarity.  _ Maybe he really does do it all differently, now. Maybe he just signs on the dotted line. 

The thought makes Luke’s stomach churn a little, makes him think for the most fleeting of moments -  _ well, if Ashton’s changed, is it still reasonable for me to hate him? _ Then, though, just as that thought settles like a cold stone in his stomach, Ashton raises his hand, looks around the room for Colin, and says:

“I’m not quite sure about paragraph six, clause three?” Luke almost snorts derisively, spiteful glee and cool relief flooding his veins as he thinks  _ yeah, you’ve not fucking changed a bit. _

“Let’s have a look,” Colin says, and Luke turns back to the NDA in front of him, busying himself with reading through the terms as he lets the  _ not quite clear _ and  _ questionable phrasing _ floating over from his right wash over him. Christ, they’re making it sound like he’s going to be in possession of state secrets -  _ you shall do everything reasonably within your power to protect the confidentiality of the Confidential Information,  _ what the fuck is that? Who the fuck is taking part in this study? 

By the time Colin’s moved away from their desk, Luke’s reached the end of the NDA and decided kicking up a fuss about this melodramatic document that he barely understands would be completely pointless, given the fact that he’s pretty much trapped in the UK for four weeks by virtue of his fixed flights and scarce finances, so he signs and dates it as Ashton pushes the contract to one side and reaches for the NDA. Luke watches out of the corner of his eye as Ashton’s gaze flits rapidly from left to right, as his brow furrows slightly and he nods thoughtfully, flips it over, reads some more, and then nods, satisfied, and signs it. It’s that easy; no fighting Colin over  _ ambiguous phrasing, _ or whatever, just read and signed. 

Almost as though Ashton can sense Luke’s confusion, he catches his eye, and smiles a little sheepishly. 

“Signed a lot of these in my time,” he says, re-capping his pen. “This one’s fairly standard.” Luke frowns. 

“What d’you mean, you’ve signed a lot of these?” he says. Ashton shrugs. 

“Well, I can’t tell you, can I?” he says. “Sort of the point.” Luke’s frown deepens. 

“You’re a drummer,” he says, trying to make sense of it. What the fuck do drummers need to sign NDAs for?

“Exactly,” Ashton says, like it explains everything. What the fuck? 

“Are you a spy?” Ashton looks at him, surprised, and then huffs out a laugh, bright and amused. 

“No,” he says. “But I couldn’t tell you even if I were, could I?” That’s true, but Luke thinks he would know if Ashton were lying. 

“Well, no, but I’d know,” he says, without thinking, and Ashton raises an eyebrow. 

“How would you know?” he says, and Luke shrugs, a little uncomfortably. He’s not really sure why, but he knows that he would know, knows it like he knows how to blink and how to breathe. He can’t  _ explain  _ it, can’t teach anyone else how to do it, can’t break it down or point to where and when the knowledge was acquired, but he does know it. Ashton couldn’t keep something like that from him. 

“Just would,” he says, a little stiff, a little evasive. 

“What, soulmate experience number three is being able to know what my job is?” Ashton says, sounding amused, and Luke can’t help the tiny smile that forms on his lips at that. That  _ would _ be a pretty shitty soulmate experience, wouldn’t it? 

“I’d rather that than- y’know,” he says, inclining his head a little, and Ashton’s small smile fades. 

“At least that one’s useful,” he says, and Luke huffs out a slightly incredulous laugh. 

“Useful?” he echoes. “Didn’t do you much good last night, did it?” Ashton pulls a face. 

“That’s my own fault,” he admits. “I- I should’ve listened.” 

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Luke says, aiming for venomous, just to make up for the fact that something in Ashton’s eyes had softened a little too much when Luke had smiled, but he misses the mark and lands somewhere around exasperated. It sounds a touch too friendly for his liking, but before Ashton has a chance to respond there’s a loud clap from the front of the room that makes them both jump a little.

“Okay,” Colin says, and Luke whips around to face the front of the room, glad for the distraction, hoping Ashton isn’t looking at the slight blush that’s clawing its way up his throat to his cheeks. “I’ll collect the contracts and NDAs, and Jess will tell you about the next part of the study.” Jess steps forward from the wall she’s been leaning against, smiling tightly at the group, and looks down at a clipboard. 

“We’re going to be taking blood samples from you every day of the study,” she says. “Colin’s focused on the psychological side of things, I’m more interested in the biological and potentially neurological. We’ll be monitoring various markers in your blood as the weeks go on, seeing whether any experiments change certain levels of proteins in the blood, and measuring whether there’s any difference between the group that are living together and the group that are living apart. Once you’ve completed the questionnaires, I’ll take you to the room where you’ll get your blood drawn. We’ll be doing these every day at ten, but you won’t necessarily have any other appointments with us, so you’ll have to find your own way on other days.” She looks around the room expectantly, like she’s checking everyone’s taken the information in, and Luke nods, feeling like he’s being given instructions by a teacher. “Right, well. I’ll hand back over to Colin to tell you about the questionnaires.” 

“Thank you Jess,” Colin says, smiling out at the group from the front of the room. “The questionnaires are fairly self explanatory - just a series of questions, some to be answered on a scale of one to five, one being strongly disagree and five being strongly agree, and some just straight yes or no answers. Not all of the questions may seem relevant, but please bear with us - this is new territory for everyone, and we’re just trying to prepare for every possibility.” Everyone nods at him, and he smiles brightly, claps his hands, and then reaches for another stack of papers and starts distributing them throughout the room. Luke leans back in his chair, trying to steadfastly avoid the way he can feel Ashton looking at him out of the corner of his eye, shaking some of his curls into his face to try and put a barrier between the two of them. What the fuck does he want? 

“Thanks,” he mutters, when Colin hands him a questionnaire, and Ashton echoes the same, picking up his pen and flipping the first page over. 

The first page seems to be all personality based, and Luke finds himself shifting, trying to cover the questions with his arm so Ashton won’t see he’s circled  _ 4 - agree  _ for ‘I often think about what I should have said in a conversation long after it has taken place’ or  _ 1 - strongly disagree _ for ‘I am not easily upset’. He tries to get through them as quickly as possible, barely stops to think except on ‘I am still bothered by mistakes I made long ago’, where a little voice in his head says  _ well, you’re still bothered by Ashton, aren’t you?,  _ and chances a glance at Ashton when he flips the page to hide his answers. He’s frowning down at his own questionnaire, not trying to hide it at all, and Luke can see that he’s neatly circled  _ 5 - strongly agree _ for being bothered by mistakes he made long ago. Well, good, Luke thinks, a little bitterly, as he starts circling answers to questions about his approach to romantic relationships. He fucking hopes Ashton’s bothered. 

The room’s strangely silent except for the odd cough, the flipping of pages, the scratching of pens, a scraping sound as someone leans forward or back in their chair, and it’s almost blissful white noise to Luke until Ashton leans in, and whispers: “What did you put for the one about soulmate experiences?” Luke jerks back instinctively, jumping at the sudden intrusion upon his thoughts. 

“Jesus, Ashton,” he hisses, and Ashton raises his eyebrows and holds his hands up in a  _ sorry, sorry _ sort of way. “I haven’t got there yet.” 

“Well, it asks if we have a soulmate experience.” 

“Well, we do, don’t we? What’s the problem?” 

“Yeah, but we have two.” Luke blinks, and looks down at the page. 

“Where is it?”

“Number twenty-three.” Luke frowns, scanning the page - seventeen, eighteen- “I think it’s on the next page.” Luke rolls his eyes, but flips the page over, eyes running down the list of numbers until he gets to twenty-three. 

_ Do you and your soulmate share a so-called ‘soulmate experience’?  _

“Yes,” Luke whispers to Ashton. The question asks whether they have one, and they do. Why the fuck is Ashton confused? 

“But we have two.”

“It’s a yes or no question.” 

“But-”

“Fuck’s sake, Ashton, ask Colin if you’re that concerned about it,” Luke snaps, and Ashton blinks at him for a moment, and then turns away and raises his hand. He looks cool as he does it, looks composed and collected, but Luke had seen the flash of hurt in his eyes at Luke’s harsh tone. It’s nothing new, and ordinarily Luke would probably feel a little spiteful glee, but now he feels a stab of guilt, a wave that breaks easily and washes over his heart, covering it entirely for a moment before its next beat flicks it away. 

“Colin,” Ashton says, blissfully unaware of the churning sensation in Luke’s stomach that’s followed the unexpected guilt, and Colin looks up from where he’s been leaning against the desk at the front of the room, noting something on his clipboard. He smiles at both of them, puts down his clipboard and jogs over, stopping just before he reaches their desk. 

“How can I help?” he asks, and Ashton points to the question. 

“We, uh,” Ashton says, and Luke can feel the sidelong glance Ashton gives him but stares steadfastly at Colin, “we have two.” There’s a pause, and Colin frowns. 

“You- you have two?” Ashton nods. “Are you absolutely certain?” 

“Well,” Ashton says, and glances at Luke again, who still refuses to meet his gaze, not knowing which of the mix of emotions currently squabbling over residency of his stomach have made it to his eyes. “We- I mean, I, uh. I’m fairly certain, yeah.” 

“I’ve never heard of that before,” Colin says, still frowning. Great. Fucking brilliant. Of course him and his ex-boyfriend are possibly the first set of soulmates in the world to be documented as having two soulmate experiences. 

“Well,” Ashton says again, a little uncomfortably. “Should we- should I make a note of that?” 

“Yes,” Colin says. “Yes, if you could.” He smiles at them, still looking a little bewildered, and steps back, frown set on his face. 

“Did you hear that?” Ashton asks lowly, as Colin walks back over to the desk at the front of the room. 

“I’m sat right next to you,” Luke says, but it doesn’t come out as acrid and snappy as he’d hoped. He just sounds a little panicked. Which he is, but he doesn’t want to  _ sound  _ it.

“He’s never heard of it before.” Ashton sounds worried, and it makes Luke’s heart flip and dive into his stomach, because Ashton doesn’t  _ get _ worried, not about this.  _ Luke’s _ the one who freaks out, the one who panics over the tattoos and about Ashton and about being soulmates with his ex, and it makes something unpleasant shoot through him to hear the concern in Ashton’s voice. 

“Just because he’s never heard of it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened,” Luke says. He thinks they probably both know that he’s trying to convince himself more than Ashton, knows he’s been caught out for it when Ashton bites his lip, eyes softening a little in something that looks like both comprehension and understanding, then sighs and turns back to his questionnaire, adding a little note in his oddly-neat scrawl. It’s too long to just be  _ we have two _ and too small for Luke to read without craning his neck and making it obvious that he’s looking, and Ashton flips the page over almost as soon as he’s written it, like he doesn’t want Luke to see. And it probably shouldn’t make Luke feel a little spiritually sick, shouldn’t make him feel that strange queasiness in his throat and that sharp sting in his heart that he can identify so quickly as rejection, but it does. It doesn’t really matter, though, because that’s followed so quickly by a wave of panic and revulsion that he doesn’t even need to think about it, can just focus on letting the cold dread melt itself into familiar hot spikes of anger through the warmth of his veins.

It’s fine, Luke thinks a little bitterly, and turns back to his own questionnaire, circling  _ no _ for ‘Do you have strong feelings about your soulmate, either positive or negative?’ so hard that he almost tears the paper. Let Ashton write whatever the fuck he wants about Luke. It’s not like Luke cares. 

(Is it?) 

\-------

After the questionnaires have been handed in, Jess leads the group to a small room to the left of a lab on the second floor. There are two nurses waiting in there with trolleys covered in cotton buds and antiseptic wipes, and Luke feels an odd shiver run down his spine at the sight of a needle glinting as it catches the light. It makes his stomach turn, somehow, makes him feel like someone’s in some kind of danger, which makes him frown, because no one’s in danger of a fucking  _ needle.  _

They’re told to sit on a row of seats at the back of the room and called up one by one in alphabetical order, and Luke sits stiff as a plank while he watches  _ Sally Cartwright  _ and  _ Oliver Evans  _ get called up for their blood draws. Ashton’s sat next to him, fidgeting so much that it distracts Luke from the way his stomach is churning, makes him throw Ashton a glare, gives him something to channel his strangely nervous energy into, something to take his focus off  _ someone needs help someone needs help  _ that’s running through his mind. He doesn’t have much time, though, because then  _ Peter Gallon  _ and  _ Luke Hemmings _ are being called, and he has to get to his feet, legs feeling heavy and leaden as he drags himself over to the nurse who’d called his name.

“How are you doing today?” the nurse says cheerily, and Luke smiles tightly at her as he sits down in the hard plastic chair opposite her and holds out an arm. 

“Great, thanks,” he says through gritted teeth, as she fastens a rubber tourniquet around it. Luke’s never been keen on them - thinks they’re the worst part of having blood taken, actually, that horrible, restricted feeling - but they’ve never made his heartbeat jump like this before, never made his palms slick with cold sweat. 

“You’re a long way from home,” the nurse comments, wiping down his inner elbow with a cold antiseptic wipe. Luke stares down at her hands as she works, trying to slow his racing heart. Jesus, he’s not even afraid of needles - what the fuck is wrong with him? 

“Yeah,” Luke says, a little distractedly. “Uh. Came here for the study.” The nurse raises her eyebrows as she reaches for a needle. 

“Oh?” she says. “Well, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, then, won’t we? You’re all down for daily blood draws.” Luke licks his lips, swallows, and nods. His mouth is dry, now, but he stares at the needle as she fits it together, watches as she screws a vial onto the end, trying to pinpoint what’s making him so stressed, but feels nothing from it. And yet, despite the fact that he’d stared directly at the needle without an increase in panic, his heart is pounding so fast he thinks it might shatter a rib, and his mind is racing like it’s trying to catch up. What the  _ fuck _ is going on? He’s never had an issue with having blood taken before. What the fuck is he suddenly so panicked about, if it’s not the fucking needle? 

“Clench your fist for me, love,” the nurse says, and Luke does, digs his nails into his sweaty palm like it’s going to stop the bile from rising in his throat. “It’ll just be a sharp scratch-” Luke winces as the needle goes in, clenches his other fist too, but watches as the blood fills the vial, as she switches it out for a second vial and as the blood fills that one up too. That doesn’t make his breath come any quicker either, doesn’t make his heart beat any faster, but  _ something’s _ doing it.  _ Something’s  _ telling him  _ danger, danger, danger  _ while he waits for the nurse to reach for a cotton bud and press it over the puncture wound as she pulls the needle out. 

“Hold this for me,” she says, and he reaches over, presses down on the cotton bud while she reaches for some tape. She smiles, sorting a few vials of blood out, as Luke pulls his sleeve back down and stretches his arm experimentally. 

“Not a fan of needles?” she says kindly, and Luke shakes his head, frowning. 

“No, I- uh, I don’t have a problem with them,” he says, and the nurse just hums like she doesn’t believe him. 

“Well, I’ll see you back here tomorrow,” she says, and Luke sends her a tight smile as he gets to his feet a little unsteadily and heads back to the row of chairs. 

“Ashton Irwin,” the other nurse calls, and as Luke sits down Ashton gets up, walking stiffly over to where she’s sat and plonking himself down in front of her.

“Clench your fist, please,” the nurse says briskly, and Luke watches Ashton swallow, watches the way his chest is rising and falling a little too fast with short, shallow breaths, and realises what the clammy panic that’s been constricting his own chest is.

Ashton’s never been good with needles. Luke remembers going to the hospital with him when he’d had appendicitis, the way Ashton had, even in his delirious and feverish state, groaned and looked away and somehow gone even more pale every time an IV or a cannula needed inserting or when more blood needed to be drawn, the way Luke had had to hold his hand, whisper to him and distract him from the metal as it punctured his skin. 

It hits him like a fucking train as soon as he sees Ashton clench his fists. _Protect protect protect,_ suddenly crisp and clear, cutting through all the sticky fear in his mind, making his vision swim with the intensity with which it tells him _get up, get up, pull the needle out, stop it, he hates it, he hates it._

For fuck’s sake.

Ashton’s fists are clenched so tight that Luke can almost feel the fingernails digging into his own palm, and he takes a deep breath, tries to reach past the sharp insistence of the  _ protect protect protect _ that’s clouding every single rational thought, but it builds a wall in front of him, blocks him every which way he tries to duck around it. Shit, he thinks, watching as Ashton inhales shakily, watching the way the blood drains from his face as he looks over to his left so he won’t have to look at the needle.  _ Help him, help him, help him. _

“Ashton,” he blurts, and there’s something in his tone that he’s never heard before, something that he feels rising from somewhere in the depths of his heart and lungs and maybe even his soul, if he knew where that was stored. It’s soft, gentle, soothing, calm, kind, but there’s something more to it, something that penetrates the word so deeply that it almost turns it into something non-verbal entirely. “It’s okay.” Ashton stiffens momentarily, so briefly that had Luke not been completely tuned into his every move he would have missed it, then sags in the chair, like someone’s let all the air out of him. It makes Luke shiver as everything that’s been swelling in him seems to dissipate with his next exhale, because it’s over, that’s it, it’s done. He’s done his job; Ashton’s safe, Ashton’s okay, and he can breathe again, which is the most important thing. 

He’s still covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and he wipes his palms on his jeans as Ashton stands up and flexes his arm, wincing at the movement, and heads back over to Luke. He doesn’t look Luke in the eye, which is probably for the best, because Luke knows he wouldn’t be able to meet his gaze and doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of that. 

It doesn’t even make  _ sense, _ he thinks, as his mind clears a little, carving out a space for the embarrassment to boil over into anger. Ashton wasn’t even in any fucking danger. What was going to happen, the big bad nurse would bleed him dry? It doesn’t make any fucking sense; Ashton was perfectly safe. Why the fuck did Luke get- get  _ that?  _

He can’t think of anything else for the remaining ten minutes it takes for everyone down to Vanessa and Roy Williamson to get their blood drawn, trying to make sense of the situation. Ashton was  _ safe.  _ He was  _ fine. _ Nothing could possibly have hurt him - so why did Luke feel like something could have? 

He’s snapped out of it when Jess comes back into the room and informs them that they should go for lunch, that they’ll move onto the interview stage of the day when they get back at one, and Ashton turns to Luke and sends him a slightly hesitant look that says  _ are we going to get lunch together, then? _ Luke just blinks at him for a moment and then nods, because what other choice does he have, really? Spend lunch with the school bully and his soulmate? 

The tension between the two of them is palpable when they leave the building, and Luke knows it’s only a matter of time before Ashton turns to him with a sigh and big, sad eyes and says  _ we should talk about this.  _ If Calum or Michael were here, he’d place bets, see whether it’d be ten or twenty or maybe even thirty minutes until Ashton brings it up, laugh derisively when he inevitably does, but instead, he’s stuck walking in silence with Ashton, the air between them colder than even the air of the English January surrounding them on all their other sides. 

Ashton says they shouldn’t go too far for lunch, which Luke thinks is probably a sensible idea but childishly resents simply because Ashton had proffered it before he had, so he fumes silently while he picks out a far-too-expensive tuna melt in the Pret around the corner from the building they’re due back in in an hour. 

“D’you want to get a table?” Ashton says, when they’ve paid. “I’ll bring your food.” Luke nods, turns on his heel and walks towards the free table in the corner that he’s been eyeing up since they walked in. He slides into the booth, sets his coat down on one side, and then takes the opportunity to stretch his legs under the table before Ashton wanders over with a tray in hand. 

“You just got the tuna melt, right?” Ashton says, settling down in the seat opposite Luke, and Luke nods again, pulling his plate off the tray and reaching for one of the napkins Ashton’s brought with him. Ashton sets the tray down in front of himself, arranges the items on it so that they’re in the right order, or whatever, and then sighs. 

“So,” he says heavily, and Luke almost wants to parrot  _ we should talk about earlier _ and roll his eyes, just so Ashton knows how he feels about it. He doesn’t, though, chooses to just take a bite of his still-too-hot-to-eat tuna melt instead. See? He can be civil. 

“What the  _ fuck _ was that?” Ashton says plainly, and it takes Luke by surprise as he swallows. 

“What?” he says, before he can help himself, and Ashton throws him a significant look. 

“Back there,” he says, picking at his baguette. A lobster roll, fucking hell. Maybe Luke should look into becoming a session musician. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t in any danger.” Luke raises his eyebrows, and takes another bite of his tuna melt, more for dramatic effect and to buy himself time than anything else. He hasn’t got a clue. 

“You tell me,” he says.

“Did you feel it?” What a stupid fucking question. Of course he felt it. What possible reason would he have had to say  _ Ashton, it’s okay?  _ other than to get the fucking instinct out of his mind? 

“Obviously.” Ashton hums at that, like he’s mulling it over, and takes a bite out of his baguette before speaking again. 

“D’you think it’s growing?” 

“Growing?”

“Like, getting stronger.” Jesus. Luke fucking hopes not. 

“I hope not.” 

“But d’you think it is?” Ashton presses. Luke shrugs. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s only happened- what, three times?” 

“Yeah,” Ashton says, frowning. “But two days in a row?” 

“I don’t know,” Luke says again, a little irritably this time. “Isn’t that why we’re here? To get answers? Because neither of us know?” Ashton scrunches his nose up for a moment. It’s a move Luke knows well, one that Ashton does when he’s weighing something up, standing at a fork in the roads and deliberating which path he wants to start down, and one that Luke always used to tease Ashton for, dodging the swat Ashton would aim in his direction with a laugh.  _ You look adorable,  _ he’d say, grinning, and Ashton would roll his eyes, but he’d be smiling too, eyes bright and happy because Luke thought it was cute.  _ I look stupid, _ he’d say, and Luke would roll his eyes, still grinning, and shake his head, wrapping his arms around Ashton.  _ You look fucking adorable, _ he’d say, and he’d mean it. He still does mean it, he thinks, as he gazes at Ashton. Ashton still looks fucking adorable. 

It’s strange to be reminded of those moments now, years later, sat in a coffee shop thousands of miles away from home with their legs carefully angled away from each other, makes Luke feel suddenly disconnected from himself, like his heart had never quite learnt how to be twenty-six and without Ashton and he’s only just realising it. Or maybe not his heart; maybe his mind. 

(Or maybe not his mind. Maybe his soul.) 

“Yeah,” Ashton says, completely unaware of the crisis Luke’s currently embroiled in. “Yeah, you’re right.” Luke blinks, trying to grasp the bits of himself that are currently floating somewhere in whatever dimension existential panic is and force them back down his throat. Yeah. He is right. He’s forgotten about what, but he is right. What are they talking about? Oh, the strange experience earlier. Yeah. Got it.

“I’m sure they’ll ask us about it, anyway,” Luke says, hoping he’s done a convincing job of acting like he hadn’t been staring at Ashton while reminiscing. Ashton’s hums again, a hum of assent this time, and takes another bite out of his baguette, but Luke catches the way his lips have quirked up in a tiny smile. Fuck, Luke thinks, and his eyes flick to Ashton’s, finding them already following Luke’s gaze, something pleased and happy pooling in his irises. He knows, Luke’s sure of it, but he doesn’t say anything, just smiles a little wider, enough for his eyes to crinkle at the corners, and then looks away. 

Whatever, Luke thinks, trying to ignore the way his heart has picked up its pace. It doesn’t  _ mean _ anything that he was staring, does it? People stare all the time. Luke stares at Michael, for God’s sake. And a stare can mean lots of things, can’t it? It could have been a stare of disbelief. Or a zoned-out stare. There’s no way Ashton can know it was a stare about him specifically, let alone one caused by Luke finding Ashton cute. He can’t know that. 

They eat in silence until they’re both finished, and Luke’s just downing the rest of his water when Ashton suddenly says: “I wonder who the celebrity is.” Luke blinks.

“Well, there are only so many household names,” he says, and Ashton cocks his head thoughtfully. 

“It might be a British household name, not a universal one,” he says. 

“What, like the Queen?”

“How is the Queen not a universal household name?” Ashton says.

“Well, she’s British, isn’t she?”

“What, so a universal household name is someone from the universe?” Ashton says, sounding amused, and Luke stops. Shit. Yeah, okay, that was fucking stupid. “I mean, like, someone that they all know that we’ve never heard of.” Luke purses his lips. He hadn’t even thought of that. 

“Maybe,” he says. “I don’t know. You’re the one who’s signed NDAs before.” Ashton frowns. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he says, and Luke shrugs. 

“You know more about this than me,” he says, and tries not to let the curiosity leak into the edges of his tone. He doesn’t need Ashton to know that there’s a card he could play. 

“I’ve not signed NDAs for stuff like this before, though,” Ashton says. “It’s all- y’know. Musician stuff.” He says almost conspiratorially, like it’s some kind of euphemism, like Luke’s supposed to hear ‘musician stuff’ and think of something in particular, and a little like he’s challenging Luke to ask what ‘musician stuff’ means so Ashton can have the pleasure of explaining it to him. 

“Well, you’ve still signed more than I have,” Luke says, a little sharper than he’d intended, irked by the fact that he’s not in on the joke but can’t ask without giving something of his dignity up. Ashton frowns. 

“Are you upset that I didn’t tell you?” he asks. 

“No,” Luke says. Ashton’s brow stays creased, like he thinks he knows what Luke’s feeling better than Luke does, and it sends a sharp stab of irritation right to Luke’s lungs. “I’m not upset.” 

“Okay,” Ashton says, but he says it slowly, like he still doesn’t believe Luke. 

“Ashton,” Luke says, and the annoyance is clear in his voice now. “Don’t patronise me.” Ashton blinks, and then he sits back, nodding. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Sorry. That’s not fair of me. I’m sorry.” Luke swallows. 

“That’s okay,” he says, testing out the words and finding they slip off his tongue a lot easier than he’d hoped, satin on silk, no resistance at all. Ashton looks at him for a moment, something unreadable on his face - or maybe Luke just doesn’t want to read it - and then he smiles, a little hesitantly. 

“What about the other soulmates, then?” he says. “Sister’s husband, what’s that all about?” Luke holds his gaze for a moment, his own scrunched-up-nose moment, and then smiles back; not hesitant, but small. 

“I think that’s still better than your  _ daughter-in-law,” _ he says. Ashton grins, relief mingling with the amusement. 

“Makes you think we got off easy, doesn’t it?” he says, and Luke huffs out a laugh.

“I’d take my soulmate being my ex over my school bully any day,” he says. 

“Wasn’t Michael your school bully?” Luke pulls a face. 

“Exactly.” Ashton grins again, and Luke tries not to think about the way it makes something sizzle in his stomach. It’s probably just the tuna melt. 

"Good to know I've made it past Michael," Ashton says. "Next step is to make it past, I don't know, Charles Manson." Luke frowns.

"Didn't he die?"

"Did he?" 

"I think so."

"Well, hopefully I'm above him, then," Ashton says. Luke raises his eyebrows. 

"Jury's out," he says, and Ashton laughs, and it's warm, real, tinged with something that Luke's heart remembers - or never let go of - that makes it jump in his chest. He can feel the panic threatening to rise in his lungs to meet it and quells it just in time, just lets himself bask in Ashton's rays for once. 

It's probably just be the coffee shop, or maybe the food he's just eaten, but January's never felt so warm.


End file.
